100% quality control and flexibility in production

Throughout the world, Staufermatic GmbH has made a name for itself as a manufacturer of special-purpose machinery. This Göppingen-based company numbers all the best-known automobile manufacturers among its customers. Staufermatic was recently commissioned by a renowned car manufacturer in Swabia (Germany) to develop an assembly plant for wheel carriers. The new plant makes use of Kistler's versatile joining and monitoring technology. Process monitoring with Kistler's systems guarantees 100% quality control and maximum flexibility in production.

Every machine developed by Staufermatic is a unique product, manufactured to meet each customer's specific requirements. Recently, an automobile manufacturer based in Baden-Württemberg commissioned the firm to build a new production plant for wheel carriers. Right from the outset, planning focused on reliability and quality control in the production process.

Flexible technology from Kistler

Staufermatic needed about 12 months to build the new production plant. Ensuring precision was the top priority, as Holger Zilian, Managing Director of Staufermatic GmbH, explains: 'The process of press-fitting the rubber bearings into the wheel carriers involves fixed dimensions, so maximum precision is required. This cannot be achieved with conventional hydraulic systems. With a process of that sort, there is a risk that the rubber could be dented. That's why we opted for Kistler's NC joining systems, as we have done on similar projects in the past.'

The new plant incorporates three NC joining modules from Kistler (Type NCFN), which press-fit the rubber bearings into the wheel carriers on three out of a total of four stations. The press-fit process is monitored by Kistler's maXYmos NC process monitoring system. According to Mr. Zilian, this system clearly represents the standard for integrated process monitoring: 'maXYmos guarantees integrated process monitoring, and therefore 100% quality of the manufactured parts. That's because force-displacement monitoring is used to measure and evaluate every part that passes through the process. And as mechanical engineers, using maXYmos also gives us many benefits in the planning phase for complex plants such as this one. This system allows free programming, so it's simple to integrate additional assembly units. Kistler's technology helped us in no small measure to meet the requirements for quality, quantities, space and cost – and to do so elegantly.'

Lower costs thanks to quality data

High precision, flexibility and fast speeds in the assembly processes mean that the customer benefits from a major reduction in production costs – right from the start. And there are more advantages: space is saved on the production line, less energy is needed, and neither noise nor contamination are caused. maXYmos also optimizes traceability for the wheel carriers. Perfect documentation is ensured because each batch is identified by a data matrix code. The process monitoring system sends the quality data to the customer's master computer via the QDA interface. 'This is an extremely important feature, especially in the automotive sector,' Holger Zilian notes. 'That's because our customers' requirements are constantly increasing: data transfer for optimized production monitoring as a whole, and the issue of data security, are becoming more important as time goes on.'

Holger Zilian is proud of the plant and the work that his team has put in: 'Because this plant offers a new level of flexibility, our customer can save time as well as money on production – two critical success factors in the market of the future!'