Manufacturers across the board, from the automotive sector, through consumer goods, household products and many more, have in recent years had to deal with significant changes within their markets. Whilst increasing consumer demand for personalised products has been a challenge for some sectors, others such as the automotive industry, have been responding to a more significant change – that from the conventional combustion engine to electro-mobility. As for any transition of this magnitude, the effects of these changes filter down from the original equipment manufacturers to their suppliers.
Zimmer Group has been supplying end-of-arm tooling (EOAT) for powertrain assembly and loading / unloading of automotive industry processing lines for 30 years. During this time, the group has become a valued R&D partner of both the major automotive manufacturers and the production line system integrators who support them.
The move towards electro mobility is heralding a paradigm shift in vehicle drive technology, changing the dynamics of the market, and posing major challenges, not only for automotive manufacturers themselves, but their suppliers. Automation specialist, Zimmer Group, which in the past had focused its systems division on components for the conventional powertrain segment, is responding positively to the new demands of this rapidly changing market.
(The move to electromobility has required changes in the approach to manufacturing processes)
Electric Vehicle (EV) manufacturers are currently looking for innovative automated solutions to make their manufacturing processes and production assemblies simple, reliable, and productive. It is not uncommon for automotive product development and the development of new manufacturing concepts to take place in parallel.
This however requires maximum flexibility in both the design and build of an automation solution and in the mindset of the engineers involved. Since batch sizes in (EV) battery production have yet to reach their full potential, a flexible manufacturing concept should, or rather must, therefore be developed, alongside a flexible automation concept.
A leading partner of the automotive industry
In order to actively support the technological transition from combustion engines to electro mobility, several modular solutions for EV vehicle manufacturing have already been developed by Zimmer Group’s System Technology division.
Zimmer Group UK’s Ian Sinclair explains: “We started developing EOAT solutions for electro mobility in our research & development department as far back as 2014 and have since invested over 50,000 engineering hours in developing and perfecting systems for this market segment. We had to develop the first gripping systems under enormous deadline pressure, as the time constraints were set very tight by our customer at the time. However, it took just four months from the first meeting to delivery. Today, we are now a valued supplier to all of the leading automotive manufacturers in the EV sector, including Tesla, Porsche, BMW, Mercedes Benz, BYD and many more. We are very proud of that.” Zimmer supplies specific system solutions for rotors, stators, contact rings, gears, and various other parts within the value chain.
