Male Speaker1: Welcome to the future. This is the welding shop also known as the body build area. It's a sea of robots, 275 to be precise that fuse together many of the stamped parts of the car.
Ronald Trautzsch: This area here is where we assemble all the hoods, deck lids, and doors for the final vehicle.
Male Speaker1: Some of these robots are enormous standing 7 feet tall and weighing 2000 pounds. Here, one robot picks up an external door panel, while another one places an internal panel on top. Then this robot welds the two pieces together. Finally it lifts the completed door and carefully places it onto another panel.
Then it's off to the main buck. The main buck holds the cars left, right, top and bottom sides in place well the robots weld each of the pieces together.
These robots perform their task to within 1/1000s of an inch -- the entire process takes less than a minute.
Marshall: That's really looking like a car now.
Male Speaker3: The Car Show, we're now at the end of the actually body build process. We've got the shell of a vehicle 6000 weld plates.
Marshall: 6000!
Male Speaker3: Yes sir!
And who do you think checks the accuracy of the welds? Other robots.
These robots take pictures of 50 key points on the automobile frame and compare the welds to the computer model. The welds must match the model through within one half of a millimeter. If a frame doesn't pass inspection it's bumped off the line and sent back for more welding. Frames that pass inspection, take the high road over to the body complete area where they are outfitted with doors, the hood and a trunk and now it's ready for paint.
Marshall: Holy -- look at it's like it picked up the entire car.
Robert Katzenbach: Marshall, this is what we call the e-coat or the electric code system.
E-coat is an electrically applied under coating that protects a car from corrosion. Workers pump up to 300 volts of electricity through this liquid while grounding the car's body.
Because opposite charges attract the under coat adheres to every square inch.]
Marshall: Why the rolling?
Robert Katzenbach: By rolling the car any dead air space, any trapped air space is going to be rotated through and we're going to have good even coverage of e-coat throughout the body.
Male Speaker1: As the car bodies accept the electric coat bath they travel down another trestle into the first of many painting rooms. For the next 9 hours, the cars are moved down 4 miles of a conveyor system lined with 98 painting robots.
Here they're spraying a coat of primer.
Next, they cover each frame with 1 of 15 different paint colors and finally they apply a clear coat that provides shine and protection to the vehicle. The next stop is the trim assembly shop where man and machine finally come together.
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