Robots meant to increase efficiency slow production

Alex Gary, ROCKFORD REGISTER STAR, BELVIDERE — Last winter, contractors installed more than 700 robots in the DaimlerChrysler assembly plant’s body shop as part of a $419 million investment to make the plant the most flexible and automated of the company’s 14 North American factories.

The Swedish-made ro-bots were intended to make the place more efficient. Instead, it turns out they are the main reason the Belvidere operation has fallen behind on production of the Dodge Caliber and Jeep Compass, according to the person in charge of manufacturing for the Chrysler Group.

The fact the plant isn’t meeting production targets came to light July 3 when DaimlerChrysler officials announced sales of the Caliber dropped 2.6 percent from May to June. The sales dip was not because the car isn’t popular; it may be the most sought-after domestic new car in the past three years. It was because workers at the plant aren’t turning out enough of them.

Frank Ewasyshyn, executive vice president of manufacturing, said in a telephone interview from Chrysler headquarters in Auburn Hills, Mich., that software issues are causing frequent shutdowns in the body shop, some for just a few minutes but many for 45 minutes or more.

“This is the most ambitious product launch we’ve ever had,” Ewasyshyn said. “We’re doing way more than we’ve ever done, and it isn’t like ‘Geez, we didn’t think things would go wrong.’ ”
While Ewasyshyn said the company expected some rough going, an executive at Troy, Mich.-based Harbor Consulting, said her sources in the industry are saying the problems are worse than the company anticipated.

“They are having to burn considerable overtime to try to meet the production targets,” said Michelle Hill, director of benchmarking in North America for Harbor. The company produces the annual and influential Harbor Report, which tracks which plants are most efficient at producing vehicles. The Belvidere operation has long been a star for Chrysler in the Harbor publication, annually ranking as the company’s most efficient.

Hill said that’s unlikely to be the case when the next report comes out in 2007.

“From what I’m hearing, it’s not people issues, it is the body shop,” Hill said. “The company apparently wasn’t nearly as ready to launch when it did. They need to get this fixed. Chrysler has shifted a lot of investment into Belvidere.”

Officials at the three Dodge dealerships in Winnebago, Boone and Ogle counties — Anderson Dodge in Rockford, Brian Bemis Auto Mall in Oregon and Belvidere Motors in Belvidere — have heard that the plant is running anywhere from a 70,000 to a 130,000 Caliber backlog.

What’s going wrong
The automated body shop in Belvidere was set up to handle as many as four different models. As parts pass through, each robot does its specific task and then passes the part on to the next robot. When working correctly, it’s a symphony of manufacturing perfection. The company proudly featured the body shop, its robots silently turning, soldering, sparks flying, during a media day in February.
The problems stem from the computer programs that coordinate the robots. Ewasyshyn said the multiple configurations of the Compass and Caliber are causing “interface issues.”
He said every robot has an “interference zone” and if a part breaches it, the system automatically shuts down. He said if a part just passes through the interference zone without touching, workers simply restart the system. If the parts touch, however, then technicians have to program the system so that it doesn’t happen again the next time the body shop encounters the same parts configuration.

“If the parts touch, getting everything ready to go again takes a half-hour to 45 minutes,” Ewasyshyn said. “Just with the Caliber and the Compass, we have eight different variants when you factor in the European versions with the different steering wheel sides and the diesel versions. We have 700 robots and a lot of different permutations to work through.”

The multiple configurations, won’t go away soon, and in fact will get more complicated. The Jeep Patriot is scheduled to go into production in the third quarter of the year as well as the Caliber SRT4, a 300-horsepower version targeting the muscle-car market.

“Each one is going to add a whole new set of twists, and we’ll have to get them sorted out,” Ewasyshyn said.

In terms of quality, Ewasyshyn said the Caliber launch is “the best in the company’s history in that respect.”

Indeed, dealers have reported few buyer complaints on the Caliber, six months into its life. The Dodge and Plymouth Neon, which the Caliber and Compass replaced, had two major recalls by this time in their first year more than a decade ago.

Third shift starts Sunday
Overall, the DaimlerChrysler plant has been a steady source of good news since company officials announced in January 2005 they were going to renovate the plant and give workers a bevy of new models to produce. The Caliber, an aggressive-looking cross between an SUV and a sporty coupe, has been very well received. In June, its fifth month of availability, Calibers were spending an average of just 11 days on car lots nationwide, the same time it was taking to sell them in March. That’s virtually unheard of in the industry. Typically, in each successive month cars spend more time on lots before selling because production is increasing and the wow factor is wearing off.

Those statistics caused Tom Libby of the Power Information Network, a J.D. Power and Associates company, to call the Caliber the strongest domestic car launch in the past 37 months.
Workers began making retail versions of the Jeep Compass May 30, and the more suburban-friendly Jeep began showing up on dealer lots in late June. Initially thought to be somewhat of a risk, early reviews of the Compass have been positive.

The plant was down to 1,650 workers on one shift when the Caliber went into retail production in January. In March, DaimlerChrysler reestablished a second shift and boosted the payroll to 2,650. A third shift with 1,000 more workers kicks off Sunday night at 11 p.m., about a week earlier than expected. When workers report, it will mark the first time in the plant’s 41-year history that it will be operating 24 hours a day.

Workers were talking about robot issues in May, when the company announced it would start the third shift. LaToya McClain, a seven-year DaimlerChrysler employee who lives in Rockford, said reaction in the plant over the third shift was mixed. She said workers were happy the Caliber was doing so well but concerned that first-shift workers were continually being sent home early because of problems with the body shop.

“How can we have a third shift when the robots aren’t staying together long enough for two shifts?” McClain asked in May.
Lesson learned?

Hill of Harbor Consulting said she hopes DaimlerChrysler officials are focusing on fixing the computer issues and not banking on the third shift to take care of the production issues.
“That’d be a very expensive fix,” she said.

Hill said DaimlerChrysler was too ambitious in its makeover of Belvidere.

“A new body shop, a new car, a new engine, sequencing parts for the first time,” Hill said. “Toyota wouldn’t operate this way. Toyota would put in the body shop and run it for a year, then they’d put in a new car and run it for a year, then they’d put in a new engine. They’d work out all of the problems before moving on to the next system.

“When working on future launches, Chrysler needs to take a long look at what’s happening in Belvidere,” she said.