Wide range of product variants and efficient system design

 A manufacturer of vision systems in the commercial vehicle sector has selected a system from PIA to install and test reversing and area view camera systems - which endure a lot in rough, everyday operation.

They provide a considerable increase in safety: reversing cameras that capture the area behind vehicles and make maneuvering easier. The PIA customer supplies its platform cameras in six different versions to manufacturers of trucks and vans, agricultural and construction machinery, fire engines and municipal vehicles, among others.

Integrating the customer's wide range of variants into the operation of a fully automated assembly line was just one of the challenges facing PIA. To ensure that the cameras are durable, their housings are filled with a two-component resin. This serves to reliably insulate them electrically and prevent the ingress of moisture and dust. To harden the casting resin, the assemblies pass through a continuous oven after casting. This process takes place twice in the production sequence: after pre-assembly of the sensor heads and for the final assembly. PIA has designed the system so that the continuous oven for hardening the casting resin is used for both processes. This saves costs for the customer as well as space during plant construction. 

The PIA assembly line measures 18 by 8 meters and is divided into nine production steps: from pre-assembly of the sensor heads to end-of-line testing of leaks, function, and optics. The cycle time is 30 seconds. The leak test at the end of production is carried out on a part of the system installed by PIA, while the functional and optical tests are carried out by a third-party partner using PIA's feeding and electrical contacting systems.

“Our customer was particularly convinced by the small footprint of our system concept, which uses the continuous oven twice. Therefore, they chose PIA as their partner for the construction of the new production line. What we are particularly pleased about is that the well engineered system concept as well as the partnership-based project management have established us as the customer's A-supplier,” says Sina Hoelzer, Project manager at PIA.