Thanks for the info, Skyefire. Sounds like the rework process may have been more expensive than correcting the urethane temperatures in the first place.
Yes. although the *real* problems were on the small triangular windows between the C and D pillars (the fixed rear-passenger windows behind the roll-down rear-passenger windows). The tolerances on those were much tighter, and the sharp corners were where the effects of the urethane viscosity variations always showed up first.
I dont' think Ford actually shipped very many leakers -- every car got 100% leak-tested in a giant power-washer near the end of the production line. But the number of windows that had to be removed and re-done by hand was, IMO, excessive and unnecessary. Just temperature-stabilizing the urethane would have made for at least a 50% reduction in rework rates, IMO. But the Big Three have a proven track record at throwing away dollars to pinch pennies.
That's a good story, Skyefire. What were the results of the poorly performing urethane? Did the cars go out with quality problems, leaking windshields?
Ah, Nordson systems. Part and parcel of many of my nightmares. Not, let me hasten to add, due to any problem with the Nordson equipment, which I've always found to be pretty good. No, my nightmares are b/c I historically encountered Nordson units in the context of urethane application for automotive windshields and other glass (the "hardship detail" for almost all roboticists in the automotive industry), and often for customers who adamantly refused to set up the hardware correctly.
One particular Ford Motor plant (which no longer exists), was particularly bad. During the Detroit summer, the temperature inside this plant would swing by more than 40F between noon and midnight, and this plant was running 24hrs. But despite having very strict requirements for placing exactly the right amount of urethane in just the right place around the rim of the glass (hairpin corners and all), with the correct cross-section, this plant spent 10 years running their Nordson units with no temperature control whatsoever. And anyone who's worked with urethane knows how strongly temperature variations effect its viscosity. And since these systems did not have realtime closed-loop flow rate control, the end result was a system where an application that was perfect at noon would be crap by midnight, and vice versa. It was so bad, the various shift maintenance personnel took to keeping multiple backups of the robots, with different programs for the different times of day, to compensate for the temperature swings.
It would have been so much easier, and saved so much money in the long term, to simply buy the Nordson option for heating the urethane feed lines to a controlled, fixed temperature. But the money to buy the hardware came out of the budget of a different department than the department that would have gained the long-term savings, so.....
I tend to agree, GlennA. I would probably prefer online manuals if the search function was more sophisticated. But I've found that many (if not most) online manuels (unless they are PDFs and function like a paper manual) have poor search capabilities, which makes it difficult ti find what you're looking for.
Tool_maker; I agree that a printed manual is a valuable resource. The next best thing is a 'soft' manual formatted to be displayed page-by-page like a printed manual. Sometimes what you are looking for is not in the table of contents, or in the index, and the only way to find it is flipping through the manual page by page. But I agree, I want a book too.
You are correct in your assumption. But do you disagree with the lamentation about no manual. I have actually been known to read instruction manuals in places where I do not have computer access. I also have a much easier time reading printed pages as opposed to computer screens. Maybe it is a generational thing but I want a book.
Tool_maker; It sounds like you have only one monitor. For CAD you should have 2 monitors. And I recently found out your first monitor can be the typical horizontal orientation, while your second can be a vertical orientation, which would work well to display a manual. And if you have Windows 7, setting up a second monitor should be easy.
A pox be upon the inventor of online manuals. Maybe it would be different if we all had a second computer on which we could display the manual while trying to solve a problem with software on our computer. I am sorry, I wrote that as a collective, and perhaps I am the only one that has the problem of only one computer.
I get so frustrated when trying to do things in Solidworks and I have to keep changing screens to go back to the operator's manual. I griped and carried on so with our Solidworks provider about the absurdity of paying thousands of dollars for a CAD program and they are too cheap to spend a couple of bucks to include a manual. I always compared it to AutoCad and the extensive operator instruction manuals included with the software. Then we upgraded our AutoCad and I was very disappointed to find that we now only get the manuals online.
Look! I realize that I'm anachronistic in many ways. I've been "playing" with a sidecutter & soldering iron for too many decades not to realize that I'm very set in my ways about a lot of things. I realize that this is the ADVANCED DIGITAL AGE, but I believe that there is too much emphasis on everything internet, and that all previous forms of information dissemination are totally without merit. For example, there's a local radio advertisement for a garage-door outfit that will retrofit your opener so you can open the door from your i-phone, etc. While this IS great technology, it is indicative of how pervasive & ubiquitous this digital technology has become. Now, I'm NOT saying that having this feature on your smart phone is bad, but it shows how far we've come since the Hollerith card was king!!!!
For my designing goals, having print catalogs IS the best! And, while I don't resist the internet, I find it too frustrating & time-consuming to be of significant benefit.
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