Tech Briefs Magazine - August 2022 - MD-8

Making Automotive Assembly Lines Safer
C
ontrary to popular opinion, Henry
Ford didn't invent the automotive assembly
line. That was Ransom Olds of
Oldsmobile fame, who reportedly patented
his novel manufacturing approach
in 1901. Twelve years later, Ford simply
took Olds' good idea and made it better.
Much better, it seems. Rather than using a
stationary line like Oldsmobile, the Ford
Motor Company founder added a moving
conveyor, thereby reducing worker fatigue
while drastically increasing production
throughput. The concept stuck, and more
than a century later, the moving assembly
line remains an integral piece of most automobile
manufacturing.
More Efficient Motion
As with any electromechanical system,
however, there's always room for improvement.
Craig Dahl knows this quite well. As
manager of the parts and service department
at OCC Conveyor Inc., he was a
member of the team called upon to design
and build a more efficient means of driving
the assembly lines at a leading automaker's
plants in the U.S., Canada, and
Mexico.
The heart of what is now known as the
" OCC Systems Torque Arm Conveyor
Drive " is a custom-built gearbox solution
that utilizes the Overhead Conveyor Drive
gear unit from NORD DRIVESYSTEMS,
who collaborated extensively with OCC on
its design and implementation.
OCC Systems Engineering Manager,
Carl Wingert, working with NORD developed
the extended shaft gearbox specifically
for this application. Because conveyor
systems in different automotive
plants will require different horsepower
ratings and output speeds, NORD provided
OCC with a complete range of gearboxes
to accommodate. That includes everything
from 2 horsepower all the way up
to 20 horsepower, and conveyor speeds
from 5 to 70 feet per minute. Working directly
with automotive customers and
NORD, OCC has implemented high
speed indexing inverted conveyors that
are run at 125 FPM.
As Dahl explains, in 2014, their customer
asked them to find a more energy-efficient
and maintenance-friendly replacement
for the legacy " Floating Frame "
conveyor drives in service at that time.
Working closely with the customer and
8
OCC Systems has installed hundreds of its Torque Arm Conveyor Drive system since 2014, with 180 units
alone going into service over the past year. (Image: OCC Systems)
In the case of the Torque Arm Conveyor Drive, NORD supplied a custom, extended shaft solution that allowed
the conveyor manufacturer to improve its design. (Image: OCC Systems)
NORD, OCC soon developed a unit containing
far fewer parts and a modular
construction.
The customer approved the design and
OCC quickly went into production - last
year alone, they installed more than 180 of
the innovative drive systems.
Fighting Friction
One key feature of the Torque Arm
Conveyor Drive is its ability to use the
ANSI X458 and X678 (American National
Standards Institute) and comparable styles
of Drop Forged Rivetless Chain, an automotive
standard that dates back to Henry
Ford's days. It also eliminates all V-belts
thanks to an integrated gear motor and
brake, has a backup bar and crank arm
that allows two systems - one passive, the
other active - to work in tandem, and
numerous design enhancements such as
centralized lubrication, simplified torque
settings, and bolt-on adjustable legs for
easy leveling.
" By moving away from belts and pulleys,
we eliminated numerous connection
points, each of which increases
friction and leads to power loss, " said
Dahl. " The net effect is greater energy
efficiency, which we calculate at about
5 percent or more. That might not
sound like a lot, but the annual savings
Motion Design, August 2022

Tech Briefs Magazine - August 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Tech Briefs Magazine - August 2022