Connecting Electric Vehicles & Industrial Automation: Is Your Automotive Manufacturing Process on Autopilot?

Located north of Tokyo in Tochigi, Nissan are revolutionising EV manufacturing with their fresh approach to vehicle assembly. Joining forces with trailblazers of the industrial automation field, Siemens, the Nissan Intelligent Factory initiative was launched earlier this year. This new technology has been termed SUMO or Simultaneous Underfloor Mounting Operation, whereby the vehicle's powertrain (engine, transmission etc.) is mounted in the body from below prior to robotic installation via a pallet. However these are no standard pallets and instead have a tripartite design consisting of rear, middle and front interchangeable sections, providing a level of flexibility to accommodate various types of electric vehicles. The pallet elevates to the vehicle suspended and held in place by robotic arms which secure the powertrain in place. This production method is currently being used to manufacture the Nissan Ariya and is a far cry from their previous assembly line. In previous models, employees were required to manually guide the powertrain, a heavily labour intensive part of the process. By deploying SUMO, Nissan aims to improve working environments across all of their factories.

The set-up includes the Siemens PLC Simatic S7-1500, ET200SP distributed I/ O module as Siemens One Single Solution (OSS). The process also includes Sidis Pro, an Electronic Control Unit (ECU) developed by Siemens. This diagnostic tool plugs into the Nissan Ariya and displays the relevant data as it passes through test sequences via a human machine interface (HMI). Finally, an abundance of sensors are present throughout the assembly line, capable of identifying any anomalies in the performance of machinery. Creating a seamless flow of communication, Profinet feeds information between the factory floor and office, so from the conceptualisation to the creation, a clear end-to-end roadmap is continuously visible.