Automotive Engineering - September 2022 - 24

MATERIALS FEATURE
A materials lesson in Civics
Honda's Indiana-based manufacturing
project leader shares insights on meeting
all-new product challenges with the
launch clock ticking...during COVID.
by Lindsay Brooke
The new Civic replaces
the previous model's
all-steel rear liftgate
with a weight-saving
steel-and-resin
'sandwich,' shown
here being fitted in the
Indiana assembly plant.
A
s a veteran manufacturing engineer, Jill Fuel
was an ideal choice as project leader for the
production launch of Honda's 2022 Civic
Hatchback at Honda's Indiana assembly
plant. In eleven generations of Civic, it's the first
hatchback variant to be built in the U.S., sharing 85%
of its underbody and 99% of its chassis with the sedan.
And being an all-new model with many significant
design changes, Fuel expected the usual challenges
when the program kicked off in 2018.
" This was my first full-model project, " she told SAE
Media during the 2022 Great Designs in Steel conference.
" It was a big step up for me and for our
100-person team - and then came COVID. " The subsequent
temporary suspension of production at the
Greensburg, Indiana, facility for several weeks hit the
Civic project hard, as it did vehicle programs across
the industry.
" We faced a lot of curveballs during that time, "
Fuel said. " Our skeleton crew of associates was all
working from home. Then when Indiana started
opening up, some suppliers who weren't located in
our state weren't ready to go. Our equipment-install
timing was severely affected. 'Plan B' became Plans
C, D, or whatever happened to work. And once we
got going again, we had to compress and re-com24
September 2022
press our schedules to launch on time. "
She said the experience taught the team plenty about flexibility.
Over the first three years of the project, Fuel made seven trips to
Japan to attend in-person drawing reviews with the vehicle's designers,
in addition to many videoconferences and virtual meetings.
The result, delivered on schedule, earned 2022 North American
Car of the Year honors, a Top Safety Pick+ rating from the Insurance
Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and praise as the best Civic yet,
thanks to design, engineering, materials and process changes.
Program priorities
Honda's '22 Civic program investment included $50.2 million in upgrades
and tooling for the Greensburg plant. Most of that went to a
building expansion to accommodate a four-step laser brazing line for
attaching the vehicle's steel roof panel - the first application of a
laser-brazed (actually a copper weld bead) roof on a lower-priced
Honda model. Typically reserved for premium vehicles, Honda first
used laser welding on the 2018 Clarity, later migrating it to Accord
and Acura TLX models.
" The move to a laser-welded roof is a short-term cost but a longterm
gain, " Fuel noted, " because it eliminates the ditch joint, the 'mohican'
molding, the fastener equipment for the molding, and the install
cost. " New Yaskawa laser-weld robots lay down 1.5 meters
(about 5 feet) of copper bead per body side in 44.5 seconds. The
robots are precisely guided by a high-speed, compact 3D laser-vision
AUTOMOTIVE ENGINEERING
HONDA
Automotive Engineering - September 2022

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