Flexible handling for EV battery manufacture
The move towards electro mobility heralds a paradigm shift in vehicle drive technology, changing the dynamics of the market, and posing major challenges, not only for automotive manufacturers themselves, but their suppliers. Automation specialist, Zimmer Group, which in the past had focused its systems division on components for the conventional powertrain segment, is responding positively to the new demands of this rapidly changing market.
Electric Vehicle (EV) manufacturers are currently looking for innovative automated solutions to make their manufacturing processes and production assemblies simple, reliable, and productive. It is not uncommon for automotive product development and the development of new manufacturing concepts to take place in parallel.
This however requires maximum flexibility in both the design and build of an automation solution and in the mindset of the engineers involved. Since batch sizes in (EV) battery production have yet to reach their full potential, a flexible manufacturing concept should, or rather must, therefore be developed, alongside a flexible automation concept.
In order to actively support the technological transition from combustion engines to electro mobility, several modular solutions for EV vehicle manufacturing have already been developed by Zimmer Group’s System Technology division. Zimmer Group UK’s Ian Sinclair explains: “We started developing EOAT (end-of-arm tooling) solutions for electro mobility in our R&D department as far back as 2014 and have since invested over 50,000 engineering hours in developing and perfecting systems for this market segment.
“We had to develop the first gripping systems under enormous deadline pressure, as the time constraints were set very tight by our customer at the time. However, it took just four months from the first meeting to delivery. Today, we are now a valued supplier to all of the leading automotive manufacturers in the EV sector, including Tesla, Porsche, BMW, Mercedes Benz, BYD and many more.”
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