Following the hopeful resolution of the printing calibration issues in week seven the phone case was tested again on the Festo CP Lab assembly line. The assembly process can be seen in the video below.

This time the part was successfully processed by all of the stations, meaning that it was within the critical tolerances for the project.

This provided an opportunity to measure the time taken at each station and between ready for the following week’s tasks. Initially measuring of the station times was attempted by using a stopwatch as the part entered and exited the stations, but this proved unreliable due to the difficulty of precisely stopping the timer and recording it whilst the assembly took place. Therefore, the data was instead gathered by reviewing multiple video recordings of the assembly process. This allowed for the precise (potentially to the frame) recording of the station timings from multiple videos. The mean average of these multiple times was then determined to give an accurate representation of the time required.

The times in seconds are as follows:

1. Magazine Station: 3
2. Travel A: 8
3. Measuring Station: 2
4. Travel B: 10
5. Pick-by-Light Station: 23
6. Travel C: 10
7. Press Station: 8
8. Travel D: 8
9. Tunnel Furnace Station: 35
10. Travel E: 10
11. Workpiece Discharge Station: 8

Next week these figures will be used to calibrate a simulation of the assembly line.