Ford South Africa (SA) has unveiled a completely new body shop for the assembly of the new-generation Ranger bakkie at its Silverton plant, in Pretoria, featuring the plant’s highest-ever levels of automation and quality control.

The new body shop forms part of a R15.8-billion investment by the US vehicle manufacturer in its South African operations to enable the local production of the pickup.

Ford SA will produce the Ranger for the domestic market, as well as more than 100 export markets.

The plant will manufacture a wide variety of configurations, including single-sab, super-cab and double-cab, as well as left-hand drive and right-hand drive derivatives. 

The new 44 000 m2 body shop and its supporting warehouse are located adjacent to the recently completed stamping plant, which enables the seamless flow of stamped panels to the line where the body and load compartment of the Ranger pick-up are assembled and welded.

Building a new body shop was essential for the Silverton assembly plan in order to achieve the facility’s highest-ever installed capacity of 200 000 vehicles a year, says Ford SA operations VP Ockert Berry.

This capacity jump – from 167 000 vehicles a year – necessitated a much higher level of automation, while it also enabled the introduction of “the latest quality control systems and technologies that are essential for delivering consistent, world-class quality vehicles for our local and export customers”.

All of this means that the body shop’s production line is designed around 493 robots that transform the numerous stamped body panels – including the underbody, floor, roof, body sides, cab framing and load box – into a complete Ranger body, ready for transfer to the upgraded paint shop. 

The robotic welding guarantees the highest level of consistency, employing the latest 100-percent adaptive controllers with servo guns to deliver spatter-free body welds. 

“Designing and building our new body shop from the ground up has allowed us to integrate Industrial Internet of Things into the manufacturing areas,” says body shop area manager Adheer Thakurpersad.

“This gives our production teams access to in-depth and up-to-date analysed data trends, which allows them to make concise decisions to consistently improve productivity and quality.”

Significant investment has also been made in quality control technologies, including two inline Perceptron measuring systems that measure and record every vehicle manufactured in the body shop, along with their respective geometric pallets that they are assembled on. 

Vision systems attached to sealer application robots provides further error-proofing.

The handling of the vehicle body during construction has also been automated on the line, eliminating the need to move parts manually, which could result in damage.

As with the new stamping plant, the body shop is equipped with the GOM ATOS ScanBox blue light scanner system that provides a three-dimensional body scan for comparison with a stored design specification to highlight any potential quality issues. 

Furthermore, a twin-column fixed bed coordinate measurement machine (CMM) performs a range of probe measurements that are accurate down to microns, or thousandths of a millimetre, to ensure that production remains within specification.

The team also has access to a portable FaroArm CMM, and a portable GOM unit.

“To assess our weld quality, we conduct non-destructive testing and ultrasonic verifications, and we have a fully equipped destructive teardown facility to test the integrity of the weld spots,” adds Thakurpersad.

The body shop has 38 salaried and 500 hourly employees. 

“Being in a highly automated environment, ongoing skills development is a priority,” notes Thakurpersad. 

“Therefore we have plans to install an advanced skills development facility in the body construction area, which will enable employees to continue developing their skills in automation and problem-solving.”