A pilot production line is being installed at E:PriME to develop the advanced facility's manufacturing knowledge of electric vehicle battery arrays. It is the first step towards in-house production of so-called arrays or modules - collections of battery cells that are used to assemble electric vehicle battery packs.
HSSMI's expertise in digital tools has contributed to the development of a digital model of the new Ford facility in Dunton, as well as a "digital twin" of the manufacturing engineering process, both of which will help anticipate and experiment with changes to the facility if and when need be. E:PriME has also given HSSMI the opportunity to develop a repurposing strategy, which they will use to help manufacturers transition from ICE production to electric drives.
Next up in our interview series is Siemens. Showcasing and testing solutions in a real application without the usual production deadlines is what persuaded them to join the project. They say that production deadlines set by a real factory project prevent experimentation due to the potential cost/delay implications, but the E:PriME project allows such innovation to be tested.
Skillnet is facilitating the creation of training courses for engineers as part of the E:PriME project to assist in the transition towards electric vehicle production and claims that E:PriME in its spirit is transformational for the automotive industry. Read more in this interview and stay tuned for follow ups with other E:PriME project partners.
In the Meet the Partners interview series, we sit down with each of the partners of the E:PriME project to discuss the potential of the project, their expectations and objectives for the project. First up, project lead partner Ford Motor Company. Click on the link below to read the full interview.
The new facility that is being built at the Ford base in Dunton will include several new cutting-edge machines, some of them arriving from abroad. Over the past few months, despite travel restrictions imposed by the coronavirus, the E:PriME consortium has successfully managed the approval of a new trickle impregnation machine, which arrived at Dunton from Germany in May.
The ambition of E:PriME is to assist Ford in its journey towards electrification, creating a new facility with machines and a training area at its base in Dunton. New images have just been released showcasing the great progress already reached. More details in the image captions in the in the Gallery.
Future Powertrain Conference (FPC2020) is a two-day UK event which brings together industry and academic experts in the field of powertrain development. Presentations and discussions are held on the solutions to challenges faced by the engineering industry in the UK and internationally over the next ten years. With over 50 presenters and more than 200 companies attending, this event is seen as key to helping strengthen the UK engineering community and to meeting future challenges. This year the conference took place on 4th and 5th March, at the National Motorcycle Museum in Solihull.
In the summer of 2019, the first e-drive assembly machines arrived in the E:PriME pilot facility, located at Ford’s Dunton Campus. The new machines will aid the project to upskill the Ford UK team and other consortium members in the manufacture of electrified powertrains.
The E:PriME facility houses a low-volume rotor manufacturing line, which is made up of three operations: rotor assembly, balancing and magnetisation.
"The Automotive industry is going through significant upheaval, our products, our customer base and the way we drive is changing. This highlights the need for us to be smarter and faster, and the manufacturing engineering process needs to change to support this”.
This was the key theme running through the recent panel discussion by members of the E:PriME consortium at the Industry 4.0 Summit and Expo, where the group discussed the adoption of digital technologies to support the manufacture of complex systems.
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