Siemens Automotive has three plants in France for production of automotive electronic equipment. In Toulouse, the Group are manufacturing, programming and assembling, among others, electronic remote control car key heads, which are assembled on Printed Circuit Boards (PCB) carried on FlexLink antistatic ESD chain. FlexLink installed a conveyor size XM in co-operation with the company AT-Nutech, using an antistatic carbon-coated and ESD chains, and FlexLink pallet locating stations and a transfer system.

“Our demand for this line was to find a conveyor system that allowed a combination of transport of pallets and antistatic material to protect the electronics. “In addition, the FlexLink system offered a unique modularity not presented by the other companies”, says M. Rames, responsible for maintenance and production at Siemens Automotive, Toulouse. 

Handling ten different remote control car keys on a single line
Today three different models of pallets are running on the line handling ten different keys to the car models of Peugeot, Renault, Fiat and Lancia. “Even if we just make the programming of PCBs for our Italian client, we can also simultaneously guarantee the mounting and assembly of the key cases for the producers of the French cars”, says M. Peres, Head of Automated Equipment. 

New radio frequency control technology
By adopting the Radio Frequency (RF) the line has been logically transformed. “This programming takes a relatively long time so we have doubled this station to be able to keep up the production”, says M. Peres. 

Today’s sequence of the line: The two stations are identical, enabling the handling of both pallets simultaneously. The pallets leave the first manual work station on the main conveyor and are transferred to one or the other of the machines before they return to the main conveyor for the laser marking of the key casing.

Anti-static ESD chain provided by FlexLink
We have taken advantage of the modifications associated with the appearance of RF equipment to change the carbon-coated chain for an anti-static ESD provided by FlexLink for use in places where dust is forbidden. “It was our system builder company AT-Nutech that recommended FlexLink to us”, says M. Rames. And so far, we don’t regret that we trusted them.