How big data is ensuring our assembly lines never stop

More than a century after pioneering the use of the moving assembly line, we’re continuing to push innovation by using big data to identify potential machinery breakdowns before they occur.

 

Production can be subject to delays should parts fail and have to be repaired or replaced. But working together with robotics experts from the local university, our engineers at the  assembly plant in Valencia, Spain, are now alerted immediately via smartphone app when the predictive system’s algorithms detect early signs of machinery failure.

 

They can then schedule to repair them during planned downtimes, which avoids unnecessary delays. Since it was first implemented in early 2019, this has saved more than €1 million and meant our production plant can meet delivery times and ensure customers receive their new Ford vehicles on time. 

Eduardo Garcia Magraner, manager of bodywork and press engineering, Ford Valencia, came up with the idea after noticing that when machines deteriorate, they perform their tasks more slowly. This formed the basis of a doctoral thesis and led to the development of miniterminals – sensors that are integrated with plant machinery to detect any reduction in performance and relay that information to engineers, direct to their phones.

Nearly all of the more than 15,000 machines at our Valencia plant, where we make Ford Galaxy, Kuga, Mondeo, S-MAX and Transit models, are now monitored using these miniterminals, with our other global facilities now looking to implement the system.

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