Leica T-Probe & T-Scan Combo Perfect Match for Body-in-White Inspection

DaimlerChrysler Relies on Leica Geosystems’ “Walk-Around” Wireless Probe & High-Speed Hand Scanner for Optimal Part Fitting.

The first thing you’d notice while walking up and down the seemingly endless corridors of DaimlerChrysler‘s sleek, ultra-modern Bremen plant is the almost complete absence of people. Hundreds of robots go about their work with surgical precision, bringing different sheet metal parts into place, welding them together, moving completed parts onto the next station and transporting finished products overhead to maximize space utilization. Viewed from afar, the ubiquitous robots seem to be dancing. The few factory workers you do see use “old school” bicycles to jet between different parts of the factory: hi-tech and low-tech harmoniously coexist here side by side.

Technological progress in the manufacturing processes has meant that more daring body shapes can make the leap from the designers’ drawing board to the assembly line. In the not-so-distant past, cars had relatively simple, square shapes, with individual parts fitting to one another along more or less straight-forward lines. On the other hand, modern cars boast far more complex shapes than the cars of yore. And the task of inspecting how these parts fit to one another has gotten increasingly more complex as well.

The Body-In-White (BIW) Rollout and Process Optimization Department tackles exactly that task: it is entrusted with the job of inspecting how the various body parts fit to one another. More importantly, based on their measurements, feedback is given to the production facilities so specific, targeted adjustments can be made on the tools.

Operational Engineer Henning Siemers is involved in BIW measurement and inspection tasks. He explains: “Our job is to assure dimensional accuracy of the entire body-in-white. Of course, every BIW consists of many individual parts, and they must all fit perfectly. . . . .