Condition monitoring for automotive parts suppliers

Profile

• What was needed: Plastic energy chain, abrasion monitoring isense EC. W, and breakage detection isense EC.B
• Requirements: High output of the plant requires particularly reliable energy supply under continuous load
• Industry: Automotive industry
• Success for the customer: Intelligent "smart plastics" solution, i.e. data on the condition of the components can be obtained continuously before a system failure can occur.

Site: engine plant in Austria. Application: indoor linear robot for the automated handling of engine blocks.  At the engine plant in Austria, the largest and most important engine plant  of a major German car manufacturer, an engine comes off the assembly lines every 14 seconds on average - at peak times more than 6,000 engines are produced each working day.  This extremely high output can only be achieved with a high degree of automation and with extremely reliable components. The goal of the operators is to always avoid failures and system downtimes if possible. These high standards were therefore also set for the energy supply system of the indoor gantry. In fact, this later has to work continuously in 18 to 19 shifts per week with high dynamics. Future energy supplies can quickly reach cycles in the millions.

In order to minimise weight and noise compared to steel chains used to guide the moving cables on the linear robots, the manufacturer relies on undefined from igus. But these are not their only advantages: due to the increasingly important topic of 'predictive maintenance' in the industry, igus® has been developing the so-called 'undefined', intelligent plastic products, for some years now. "This product family, which we have grouped together under the brand name undefined, comprises various sensors and monitoring modules with which, for example, the energy chain systems from igus® can be equipped," explains Michael Blaß, Vice President e-chain systems® at igus®. "Thanks to the digital networking of machines and products, it is possible to continuously record the condition of the components and to notify as soon as a repair or replacement is required. "That way it is possible to avoid unplanned plant downtimes and expensive production losses.