Stringent Standards

Canada’s auto manufacturers are challenged with meeting ever evolving regulations.

When it comes to automotive manufacturing in Canada, OEMs and Tier companies are required to followed standards and regulations put forth by the Federal Government. However, multinational corporations like the Big Three automobile makers, Ford, General Motors, Fiat Chrysler, have to contend with standards across all countries in which they export. For this reason, automotive manufacturing regulations are being standardized between Canada and the United States. Within Canada, any vehicle manufactured and sold within the borders must comply with a set of guidelines that deals with everything from emissions requirements, child restraint system information, and side door strength to driver impact protection.

Canadian Standards

OEMs and Tier companies that manufacture within Canada have standards set out by the Federal Government and the Motor Vehicle Safety Act (MVSA). According to Transport Canada, “As a vehicle manufacturer established in Canada, you are required to ensure that your entire vehicle production meets all the applicable standards and maintain such records.”

This is recognized through the National Safety Mark (NSM), which is property of the Government of Canada, authorized by the Minister of Transportation to manufacturers of new vehicles offered for sale in Canada.

Any company that manufactures vehicles within Canada, regardless of classification, is required to affix this mark to the vehicle. This mark gives manufacturers the ability to certify their vehicle production to comply with the regulations under the Motor Vehicle Safety Act.

“Canadian manufacturers must therefore design, build and certify their vehicles to meet these standards in order to sell their vehicles in Canada,” explains Transport Canada.

Canadian-U.S. Harmonization

Although the NSM is only required by Canadian auto manufacturers for vehicles sold in Canada, there is a push for Canada and the U.S. to collaborate on developing jointly recognized standards. In February 2011, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and President Barack Obama announced the creation of the Canada-U.S. Regulatory Cooperation Council (RCC) to better align the two countries’ regulatory approach. This Council is currently working on developing joint auto manufacturing standards.

As auto makers are manufacturing and exporting in a global market, the push towards developing unified standards comes as no surprise. One of the biggest challenges now is adopting vehicle inspection and gauging systems that accurately and efficiently determine if auto parts and assembled vehicles meet the requirements.

Auto Manufacturing Metrology

This push towards harmonized standards has forced some OEMs to rethink their metrology systems, opting for a unified system across all Canadian and U.S. plants.

Auto manufacturers are moving away from traditional metrology options like metrology labs with coordinate measuring machines for a more in-line/near-line approach.

The challenge with removing a part from the assembly line is that it “often created a bottleneck [in production],” says Scott Everling, product development manager at Hexagon Metrology. “I think [auto manufacturers] are really looking to have what we call “traceable metrology data” on the shop floor, that gives them the ability to react to problems, solve them, and keep the process moving along.”

One of the biggest trends when it comes to automotive inspection and gauging is robotic metrology on the shop floor. “The three areas that we are seeing big growth are robotic metrology, dimensional gauging (robot guidance) and gap and flush,” explains Keith Mills, the vice president of global marketing for Perceptron Inc.

Each auto manufacturer will have its own unique way of inspecting parts and features in order to meet standards. One of the key factors right now “is to understand from a market standpoint where each OEM or Tier One supplier values the data versus the cycle time,” explains Everling. “There is a trade off between more information and individual data points on every feature. It’s interesting because every OEM and Tier One has a different emphasis on what point works well.”

In Canada, Fiat Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, Honda, and Toyota have all set up shop. Within their facilities, they have a variety of different inspection equipment and systems in place to ensure they are able to apply the NSM. As Everling points out, each individual OEM has a different interpretation of what systems work and what features they need to focus on. For example Chrysler has always like vision systems, according to Mills.

A look at Chrysler

With the announcement of a US$ 2 billion investment in the Chrysler minivan plant in Windsor, the addition of new lines means a need for more inspection. Perceptron has 10 stations going into that plant.

“A typical OEM plant has standard vision measurement systems which include: pallet, underbody and framer,” explains Tom McDonnell, Business Development Manager - Asian / Chrysler Accounts for Perceptron. “Our systems measure the pallet that holds the body. If there is pallet variation then there is body variation”, explains McDonnell. Once the pallet is inspected, the vehicle will go to an underbody station where there is a four robot cell to measure the vehicle underbody. Then it will go to a framer station where the Perceptron confirms the body is dimensionally built correctly. Recently many OEM’s have been adding a gap and flush station. These are located either in the body shop or in the final assembly area where a finished vehicle is checked by a Perceptron 4 robot Gap and Flush measurement system. The station measures the gaps between doors, doors to fenders and doors to roof. It checks gap and flushness to ensure they are correct dimensionally. Variations in colors of paint, chrome and plastic are do not effect measurement quality.

At the Brampton facility, where they make the Charger, Challenger, and 300, Perceptron has several systems at the plant which have been there for many years.

Ford is doing it different

Ford is adopting a different approach with the “Vehicle on Wheels” system. Traditionally, most inspection systems focused on body-in-white or in-production inspection. Ford announced earlier this year that they would be producing the Edge at the Oakville Assembly Plant and investing over $700 million in the facility. They highlighted that one of the major transformations included robotics, more than 250 of them with a vision system that improves efficiency, precision and quality. The new “Vehicle on Wheels” vision system was put in place to “ensure the flushness of doors, hoods and lift gates through laser and optical images for a seamless fit,” says Ford.

According to Mills, this system has been rolled out in every Ford manufacturing plant. “What we are now doing is Vehicle on Wheels where the complete finished vehicle comes off the assembly line and is rolling down the end of the assembly track. And we have robots on either side, measuring real-time the gap and flush of the finished car, we are tracking a moving vehicle,” he says.

Global Competition

In terms of systems requirements across Canada and the U.S., McDonnell asserts that the standards are the same. The push towards robotic metrology and unified standards is making it easier for companies to adopt new and efficient systems.

“It’s common knowledge that in automotive [manufacturing] the turnover from model to model has shortened drastically in time. And there is a lot of pressure to get these cells up and running from new product development to the introduction phase,” says Everling.

Auto manufacturers must meet requirements in order to receive the NSM, adding new gauging and inspection systems to a facility can make it much easier to bring vehicles to the mark.

“The move is to make the systems more flexible, to gather more information than just a single point, which gives [auto makers] the ability to really see, from a 3D perspective, what’s going on,” explains Everling. “It gives them the ability to solve it much quicker.”

The competition is fierce, not only with North American companies but European and Asian OEMs. With strict North American auto manufacturing regulations, other OEMs are taking note in order to compete. Meeting auto manufacturing standards is becoming ever more important in today’s global economy. The Canadian Government has set out strict regulations that all OEMs and auto parts manufacturers are required to achieve. Through technology advancements and listening to market needs, metrology companies are able to create systems that allow auto manufacturers to meet these standards and deliver the best vehicles possible.

About the Author
Canadian Metalworking / Canadian Fabricating & Welding

Lindsay Luminoso

Associate Editor

1154 Warden Avenue

Toronto, M1R 0A1 Canada

Lindsay Luminoso, associate editor, contributes to both Canadian Metalworking and Canadian Fabricating & Welding. She worked as an associate editor/web editor, at Canadian Metalworking from 2014-2016 and was most recently an associate editor at Design Engineering.

Luminoso has a bachelor of arts from Carleton University, a bachelor of education from Ottawa University, and a graduate certificate in book, magazine, and digital publishing from Centennial College.