May 2007

Highly automated manufacturing in automobile production 
(picture ABB)

Landquart; With 2.6 million automobiles manufactured last year and more than 130'000 employees, Renault is one of the biggest automobile manufacturers in the world. 

Renault automobiles are manufactured in 27 production facilities in 17 countries. One of which is in Bursa in Turkey, where alongside engines and transmissions, the Renault Clio 3 is manufactured. In 2004, 197'353 vehicles left the production line in Bursa. That means a vehicle every three minutes, round the clock!

Such a rate of production demands a high automation level. Kale Altinay specializes in automation and robotics and is Renault Turkey’s automation partner. The system integrator is responsible for the implementing and the efficient opera-tion of the equipment. 

The Safe4 safety light curtain (category 4 according to EN 954-1) is used in the most diverse designs and configurations for the safeguarding of the individual production steps, e.g. punching and welding, in compliance with the standards. 
Thanks to its robustness and adaptability, the Safe4 safety light curtain system has already successfully proved itself in other Renault plants. 
The engineers at Kale Altinay were also very impressed with the laser alignment system ILAS integrated in the light curtain’s housing. Alignment is made incredibly easy, even for complex safeguarding applications where safety mirrors are used instead of multiple light curtain systems. ILAS is also very helpful when realigning the system after repairs or maintenance work to the equipment.