BODY WELDING - CAN IT BE FLEXIBLE?

BODY WELDING - CAN IT BE FLEXIBLE?
Some 250~300 pressed panels from in-house and vendor facilities are brought to different subassembly stations of Body Weld Shop. Subassemblies of pressed components are carried out mainly by resistance welding and other joining methods in a planned sequence at number of stations. Some subassemblies are done in off-line manufacturing cells and fed in at appropriate locations into the main assembly line. Fig. 6.1 shows a layout of a typical Body Weld Shop. Front end, rear floor, and front floor, are transported to underbody body line, where all these are welded together in sequence to form the floor structure. Underbody is then transferred to main body welding station. Right hand and left hand body side panels are brought from two sides to main body weld station, after completion of all subassembly operations in separate lines. Preframing of body structure is carried out on special fixture. At same or next station, roof is added to form the body shell, Fig. 6.2. Thereafter, rear doors, front fenders, hood and decklid/ tailgate fitments are carried out to complete the body-inWhite. If necessary, a metal finish line may be added for minor repair of Body-in-White before it moves for painting. Fig. 6.3 illustrates the sequences of subassemblies and the main body weld. Typically, Body weld shop activities cover fixturing, welding, and transportation between the work stations, and the related support services..

Fig. 6.1 A Typical Body Welding Shop Layout

Over the years, the concept of building the fixturing for body shop has undergone changes. In earlier concept small unit parts used to grow to large ones by sequential welding in
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jigs/fixtures. For better rigidity and to avoid distortion causing dimensional inaccuracy of structures, the parts were clamped on dedicated and complicated