TQC have designed and produced a number of assembly benches for several applications across a number of industry sectors.
Assembly benches, sometimes known as assembly fixtures or assembly jigs, are generally manual or semi-automatic in operation and use an operator to carry out the majority of functions. An assembly bench incorporates location tooling for the parts, designed so that an operator can easily load the parts. Technology modules such as part sensing, vision inspection, vision measurement, colour sensing, vision measurement for automatically checking can also be incorporated into an assembly bench. A pass stamp or other marking system can be included to indicate the assembly has been completed correctly using the assembly bench.
Benefits of using an assembly bench with dedicated location tooling instead of only a benchtop is that the tooling can act as a 3rd or 4th hand for the operator simply by locating parts in a manner that will help the assembly requirements.
Assembly Benches Format
The format of an assembly bench is driven by the customer’s requirements. A manual assembly area and an automatic test station can be placed side by side on a bench so the manual assembly and automatic function testing can operate concurrently. A back-to-back two station assembly bench allows commonising of the PLC control system and is a more compact footprint.
Poka yoke functionality is commonly incorporated into assembly benches. This ensures that only the correct parts can be loaded and only the correct assembly can be removed from the bench (incorrect parts would be locked into the tooling).
Previously, TQC have provided assembly benches for the automotive plastic industry where the operator needed access to both faces of the large plastic moulding without damage during handling. Another assembly bench that we have supplied had multiple stations for automatic pressing, manual assembly of automatically fed parts and a final function testing operation that was carried out automatically.
By installing assembly benches or intelligent fixtures into your production facility, operations can be carried out quicker, more accurately and error free as the assembly bench checks what an operator is carrying out and only allowing correct parts out.
An assembly bench is a cost effective solution that can help manual labour produce quality assured and automatically checked assemblies. Correct assemblies are critical in many production environments including the pharmaceutical and medical sectors, the automotive sectors, automotive plastics and aerospace and defence industries.
