Overhead cranes in the press shop of car manufacturer Nissan’s plant in Sunderland, UK have been retro-fitted with upgraded remote controls.
The controls, supplied and installed by Cattron, were specified primarily to improve safety. One of the main requirements of the new system was that the controllers could not be activated unless two deliberate operations were made. For example, the ‘push to operate’ bar on the new system can only be activated by using both the palm of the hand and one of the levers.
When calling for tenders Nissan also specified a system that would be flexible enough to be adapted to incorporate future requirements, maintainable with reliable fault-finding indication, and robust enough to withstand the demands of a plant that is expected to produce 334,000 cars this year.
The Sunderland plant, where the Micra, Primera and Almera models are manufactured, is often cited as Europe’s most efficient and productive car plant.
Cattron (UK) installed a total of 17 portable radio control systems on overhead cranes in the marshalling areas, blanking lines and transfer press lines. The cranes unload steel coils from suppliers’ trucks in the marshalling area and then into the blanking lines where flat steel blanks are pressed out. These are then collected into stacks, ready to be formed into parts. In the transfer press lines, the remote controlled cranes load and unload the die sets used in the formation of three dimensional panels.
