Ford investing $100 million in robotic inspection to improve quality

Robotic Plant Laser Inspection at Chicago Assembly Plant

Ford is making a $100 million global investment towards their goal of being number one in customer satisfaction. They will add laser robots at their inspection plant to improve the overall quality of their vehicles.

The laser vision robots will be used at Michigan Assembly Plant, Chicago Assembly Plant and Saarlouis, Germany Plant. The first vehicles that will be inspected by them are the 2012 Ford Focus and the Ford Explorer.

One of the benefits of the laser technology is that it will achieve a degree of accuracy that was previously unattainable due to human error. This results in better fitting parts. Efforts will also be made to further reduce wind noise. A variety of tools will be used to detect air leakage in conjunction with the robots.

“Ford’s robotic laser technology gives us a degree of precision like never before,” said Ron Ketelhut, chief engineer, Body Construction Engineering. “The vision technologies verify the dimensions of interfaces on the vehicle’s body in a highly accurate way, to a tenth of a millimeter.”

Ford’s investment should keep its already high ratings amongst consumers and continue to get even better reviews.

– By: Alexandra Koken