Stellantis Valenciennes Cuts 2.7 Tons in Daily Handling with Inbolt’s Vision-Guided Automation
Stellantis Valenciennes boosted automation with Inbolt’s vision-guided system, overcoming challenges like inconsistent part positioning and heat-induced pallet variation. The solution reduced integration complexity, eliminated custom fixtures, and saved 2.7 tons in daily fixture weight, enhancing production line efficiency.
Customer: Stellantis
Location: Valenciennes, France
Return on Investment: 12 months
Challenge
Stellantis Valenciennes is a key gearbox manufacturing plant in Northern France, specializing in high-precision machining and assembly of gear components for the Stellantis automotive group. The plant aimed to automate the loading and unloading of gear parts on one of its machining lines but encountered several technical challenges. Raw parts arrived with non-repeatable positioning, making standard robotic picking unreliable. Furthermore, the pallets used during unloading underwent heat treatment, causing geometric variation and inconsistent pin positioning. The Universal Robots UR10e robots, mounted on mobile carts for added flexibility, can be easily moved along the production line to adapt to changing production constraints. However, this mobility introduced slight variations in positioning each time the robots were relocated, complicating the automation process.
Solution
Inbolt equipped the two UR robots with a real-time, vision-based 3D localization system to ensure precise part handling in the dynamic manufacturing environment. For loading, the system detects the exact 6DoF position of each raw part, allowing the robot to pick parts reliably, even with inconsistent placement. During unloading, the system recalculates the exact position of the pallet and its pins, adjusting the motion to avoid collisions and ensure correct part insertion, despite changes in geometry from heat treatment. Additionally, the vision system compensates for variations in robot positioning due to the mobile cart setup, ensuring consistent and reliable operation across the entire production line.
Success Metrics
- Enabled flexible automation of two operations without requiring mechanical recentering or fixed positioning.
- Eliminated the need for custom fixtures or rigid pallet alignment, reducing integration complexity.
- Saved over 2.7 tons in fixture hardware weight through vision-based alignment, accelerating robot deployment and simplifying mobile cell movement. (This equates to saving 2.7 tons of weight previously handled manually across 600 gears, each weighing 1.5kg, per day.)