The current issue at the Honda Indiana Auto Plant is in the welding department. The Honda Civic 5-door has a brazed joint between the roof and side panel. The brazing wire gets kinked which interrupts the brazing process. This in turn stops the production line resulting in time lost. This wastes a lot of time needed in the manufacturing process because a technician will be required to come out and fix the kink within the machine as well as find out where the machine left off so the Honda employees can restart the machine from that point. Honda necessitates a solution that detects the kink and allows the job to finish without issue.
The solution to this problem was a photosensor that breaks when the kink occurs and lifts the hat on the barrel. A handmade shearing mechanism powered by a linear actuator then cuts the wire and allows for the continuation of the brazing process. There is enough wire after the cut to braze a couple more vehicles. This allows for less downtime as technicians can replace the brazing wire barrel while the remaining wire continues throughout the system.
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