Location: Saarbrücken, Germany

Year: 2008-2017

ZF Friedrichshafen AG produces components for 8-gear automatic transmissions. Since 2008, the Saarbrücken plant has been expanded in seven steps to the required gear unit numbers. ADITOR has taken over the planning and technical implementation of the control technology for 38 pre-assembly lines in this complex, long-term, high-performance project. In some cases, up to 15 Siemens S7-300 controllers are used per assembly line. The pre-assembly lines are wheelset, converter block and oil supply pre-assembly lines. Each unit undertakes the pre-assembly of several hundred thousand parts a year. After completing the work, several million pre-assembled transmission parts are expected to come off the production line each year at the Saarbrücken site. Production of the parts is cost-intensive, therefore returns are reprocessed, if possible, until they are 100% capable of withstanding a quality inspection. When tracing faulty components, the connection of instrumentation and control plays a crucial role. It enables the traceability of individual component data during the production process and after production. The components are individually marked with a DMC code so that the respective quality data can be read from the database at any time (during and after the process). However, connection of the instrumentation and control to the individual controllers is only one of the tasks taken over by ADITOR. Added to this are the integration of robots, safety controllers, electric spindles, servo technologies, RFIDs as well as camera and measuring computer systems for process monitoring.

Due to the many years of successful cooperation in Saarbrücken, ADITOR has already received a follow-up order for the integration of 108 control cabinet units in a ZF transmission plant in the USA. The existing UL certification (US certificate of quality) proved to be particularly beneficial for the award of the contract.