WHEN one of Australia's largest automotive systems providers needs production tools for safety-critical fastening applications, they choose Stanley DC nut runners supplied by Hawker Richardson .
Air International Group Limited is a tier-one supplier to the world's automotive industry, specialising in heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC), seat and steering systems, metal pressings, fabrication, modular assemblies and rail and bus HVAC systems.
"We installed our first Stanley DC electric nut runners two years ago and have been very happy with their performance so we continue to purchase them," Melina Matsakos, process engineer with the company, said.
"We choose Stanley because of their torque precision, process and statistical reporting capabilities and reputation in the automotive industry."
Stanley Assembly Technologies manufactures a wide range of field proven DC electric and pneumatic assembly tools, controllers and qualifiers. Each DC electric tool is equipped with a highly accurate torque transducer and precision resolver.
The QPM (Quality Productivity Modularity) controllers use these sensors to monitor the torque, rotational position, speed and acceleration 1000 times per second to tightly control the rundown.
This produces consistent joints and fast cycle times by incorporating Stanley Assembly Technologies' patented Adaptive Tightening Control or "ATC" software, which also ensures tools run at the optimum efficiency while maintaining joint consistency.
Different levels of torque control meet assembly requirements ranging from the most critical, such as safety related vehicle components, to non-critical. Network systems enable plant-wide real-time assembly monitoring including statistical charting and trace analysis, plus remote tool configuration and hardware diagnostics.
Ms Matsakos said that monitoring the performance of the nut runners is extremely important to Air International from a quality control perspective.
"The quality department regularly downloads the statistical information from the tools via the diagnostic controller. We need to monitor the performance of these tools and the reports provide information such as process capability (CpK), average torque values and the like," Ms Matsakos said.
DC nut runners and other Stanley products can be seen at Austech during National Manufacturing Week.
Visitors to the Hawker Richardson stand, No A20 at Austech 2004, can also view products from some of the world's other leading manufacturers including Yamaha, Cooper Tools, Fiam, C-Jac, Vision Engineering, OGP, Knight, Drillmatic, Good Hand, Tigon, Plarad and Orbitform.