Ubisense Smart Factory installed at Daimler

Since the beginning of July 2013, Ubisense Smart Factory is in production on the Mercedes S-class assembly line in Sindelfingen, Germany. In a pilot phase, the system was tested and integrated with the DC tools in two line segments. The remaining stations were then equipped and all the DC tools were integrated in the subsequent step, which went live in July.

Smart Factory is used in the Sindelfingen plant to identify vehicles and assets on the final assembly line and to control tools based on their position. Linked to the vehicle ID, the real-time tracking data is also transferred to other systems in the production facility, so machine operators always know which particular vehicle is arriving at a station—even on those line segments where conventional vehicle sensing systems cannot be used. Cumbersome, manual scanning processes are thus eliminated, vehicles and tools are matched automatically and the correct tool programs are loaded at the respective work stations. As a result, unproductive assembly time is reduced significantly and errors that can occur with manual processes are avoided.

Smart Factory is integrated seamlessly with the car manufacturer’s PLUS manufacturing execution system and allows for a direct control of the DC tools via the Atlas Copco Open Protocol. In the full roll-out, devices and tools provided by other vendors are also controlled via the real-time location data. The system was implemented by Ubisense together with Atlas Copco, who have a strategic partnership since 2009.