Fiat Chrysler Automobiles Sterling Stamping Plant, Sterling Heights, Michigan
Vložit
- čas přidán 8. 09. 2024
- Provides stampings/assemblies for the Dodge Grand Caravan, Dodge Dart and Dodge Durango; Chrysler Pacifica and Chrysler 200; Jeep Grand Cherokee, Jeep Cherokee, Jeep Compass and Jeep Patriot; and Ram Truck.
Company I worked for supplied stackers, destackers and die change carts for that plant. Was always amazed on how clean and quiet it was there.
It is so vastly different today than is was when my father worked and later retired from the Sterling Stamping Plant from 1969 to 1981. There used to be thousands employed there and only hundreds.
However, quality and productivity has certainly improved with the introduction of automation.
Yes it is. My late grandma retired on a medical from Sterling Stamping in 1986. One of the best press operators they had back then.
What's funny is before when they had thousands working there the cars and trucks cost less. Now they have fewer workers and the cars cost more.
@@dougattube thanks to government involvement & legacy costs
With Chrysler at least, most human jobs seem to be geared towards QC.
@@dougattube got very little to do with us workers. People today need every dumbass gadget in their cars now. Most can't even back a car up without a camera. Then people said stereos aren't good enough. Nope, I need a 37 inch plasma infotainment system that can scratch my ass for me. Add in the fuel economy regulations, and a whole host of other stuff, and it's not hard to see why cars cost what they cost.
Note how a flimsy piece of steel gains much more strength once it's bent and formed ( stamped )... That is pretty damn cool in of itself.
Great Tooling-tour used by Fiat Chrysler in Michigan. Door Panels are Awesome...Thanks!
Chippewa Valley Technical College (CVTC) Tool Design Class!
Thomas J. Vanderloop, Author, Instructor & Manufacturing Contractor
There’s a lot of automation. I toured the Warren Stamping plant in 1971 and have things changed with robots and automation. Even robots are welding the inner and outer door panels, jobs that were once done by humans. Although stacking quarter panels all day long is Monotonous.
Hello Manufacturing Engineers in the house! Greetings from Germany.
I was involved with installing the first Schuler Syncro-Line at the Sterling Heights Plant in 1985/86. Also worked at the sister plant in Twinsburg, which is no longer there.
Been there many times. That plant is awesome, one of the largest stamping facilities on the planet. Here, they are knocking out roofs and bodysides about one every 10 seconds.
It takes an enormous amount of human effort and resources, here and behind the scenes to make that happen
Why does it take such a powerful machine to stamp that thin sheet metal? Is it because the tight edges require significantly more effort?
@@MuffinMan0521 Bending a flat piece of sheet metal in one axis isn't difficult. Bending that same piece
in three axis’ at the time requires exponentially more force.
Grab a cheap metal spoon from your kitchen. You can easily bend the flat handle area. Now, try to bend the ‘business end’. You probably can’t even move it. Multiply that by several thousand and you’ll have an idea just how much force is involved.
When it opened in 1965, at 2.74 million square feet it was billed as the largest single floor plant in the country. I still have some ashtrays that were stamped there from an open house.
@@Pro1er ...And, at the time, 'largest in the country' meant 'largest in the world'. Japan and Korea and most of Europe had yet to catch up.
The Ford-Woodhaven plant was considered it's 'sister' plant made around the same time with the same basic layout.
There's another 20 feet below the floor where the scraps fall through the presses onto large conveyors and out of the building.
It's an amazing place.
@@48306jw Yeah, I'm pretty sure they said that it was the largest in the world but I can't remember because that was over 50 years ago.
Some very well engineered dies. Wish we had those at my work.
I worked for Libbey-Owens-Ford Glass Co as a lamination process engineer in the 90s....we got to tour a couple of stamping plants to study their robotic systems - they were also using ABB robots. It was cool to see how side panel, hoods and trunks were made. The plant was very very loud for sure...but it was pretty damn cool. When I worked for Guardian Glass, we used to go to the plant that made the Prowler and Vipers. Cool stuff.
60 Hours of this is no joke.
Of what?
Smiles all around !
Working a job where you move a piece of metal on a rack all day makes you wish Dodge still allowed drinking on the line.
Doesn't stop them from drinking. I lived right across the street from the Warren stamping plant and the workers would be at the liquor store buying booze and smoking weed on their lunch break all the time. The engineers at Fiat Chrysler should be commended for engineering such safe processes for these dirtbags.
that piece of 20 dollar metal goes to 2000 every time it hits
Got to cover the costs for the dies, press, robots and the workers, as well.
Wow. Nice seeing how the doors were made for my Dodge Grand Caravan.
I am IMPRESSED to say the least!
At Brampton stamping it’s the same way except the racks are picked up and delivered by remote forklift
I worked in bap stamping for the last 3 years before I retired. Great group of people who worked there.
lots of money in this video. Makes it seem like cars are underpriced but yet we struggle to purchase one.
That press is about $100,000,000
Oh, Those Coffee Brakes when they came.
I am always blown away by the creativity of people to design and build such machines.
Can anyone tell me please, how many times do they have to 'tweak' (add/grind) the dies before they get the pressing right? How long do the dies last?
Making die in line to produce the part like in the video takes about a year depends on the die. Some tools gets into line in a month, 3 months etc. , It almost works for 10-15 years, also depends on the part needed. This die making period of time includes the part feasiblity tests, die designs, workshop and press adaptations.
I work at a stamping factory in South Carolina and we have a job that’s been with us for over 13 years and it’s still going. When we get new jobs in it can take several months before everything is correct. Some jobs we put in and it’s flawless after the first time or two. We’ve even crashed a job so bad it completely destroyed the one of the operation and it took nearly 2 weeks to rebuild that die. Granted we are a transfer press so our dies are like a quarter of the ones in this video. With proper care they can last forever
@@lisacarol3168 How much do you think it costs to make one of those dies?
MuffinMan0521 depending on size but maybe $150.000 for one die. Could be more tho. Ours we have 3 to 5 dies for one job.
Work at a stamping/assembly plant in Kentucky, just recently pulled a die out of storage that we ran from 2003-2011, ran it again last month for limited run service parts
How they manage theire inventory and daily production plan to minimise lead time?
With out the automation or Robot controls.
And yet they can't put a robot or two to stack the finished parts.
Nope. GM does it the same way. Maybe someone has done it, I don't know. But you would have to locate the racks in the same position every time, the racks would have to be mastered, the robot would have to account for the stack as it grows, and you would have to find fork truck drivers who don't moonlight as demolition derby drivers on the weekend. Oh, and then there's constantly repairing the dunnage (from the drivers who moonlight) so the sensors will pick them up properly.
And dings, scratches, and dents are not acceptable. Not only will it affect your "fit-n-finish" in the Body shop, but it will tend to piss off the Paint shop boys when they have to repair each job that comes out of Body.
@Waterlec
No argument there, we had insane clown drivers as well. But I was talking about stacking the parts in the racks. They could use AGVs to haul them off I suppose, but they have their own issues.
@gblueslover2
I'm an old tradesman myself (electrician), but I transitioned over to engineering back in the 80's, long before I went to work for Saturn. So I know what you are talking about. :) I'm "retired" from GM, but I like to work, so I'm hanging out at a HVAC plant at the moment. I kinda miss startups though...
@gblueslover2
Saturn Springhill? Yes, first as a contractor, and then as an engineer in GA. I left in '09 and came back in Paint in '12. But I really served as their roving (some would say raving) engineer, covering all of the business units except Powertrain.
But I've worked at Shreveport, Lorraine, Linden, Bramalea, Canton, Symrna, Ford and GM in KC, and Lake Orion.
Saturn was by far the best... :)
Waterlec my dad was forced into retirement in 1981 when a hilo driver rammed my dad’s train and broke my dad’s back. The idiot ran a stop signal.
Nice work
The American dream: Stacking metal parts in a stamping plant?
Gorgeous!!!! But I saw there are some repetitive jobs to robotize.
That whole plant can be automated.
You people aren’t going to be happy until every American is waiting tables or washing dishes.
@@RGD0756 I work for FCA at their Jefferson North plant. Automation ain't all that, I can tell you.
@ I work in the manufacturing plant of a well known, Maine based retailer. We have some automation, but I often wonder if the amount of downtime and waiting for parts and technicians from Europe is really worth it. The problem with parts and supplies is not so much getting them from Europe to here as waiting for them to get through customs once they get here, and that can take weeks. I can think of one perfect example - the machines we use for putting eyelets in boots. We have some American made ones whose design goes back to 1937, and they are rarely down. But the Italian made ones rarely run. I could give many other examples, but I think you get the point.
@@RGD0756 absolutely my friend. I'm an electrician at an assembly plant. Only been here close to 2 years. Before that I worked in a coal fired power plant, did some commercial work, then got into automotive. I scratch my head at some of the things we do. The downtime here gets compounded by the fact we rarely have any time to do maintenance and preventative maintenance on our particular line. It sucks for someone like me who is still wet behind the ears when it comes to automation because I'll get some weird fault, won't know what the hell to do to clear it, then nobody knows what's going on and can't point me in the right direction. I'll ask what caused it and nobody will know. I definitely see the advantages of automation, but people like you and me who actually work with it, know just what a royal pain it really is.
È lo stabilimento di Mirafiori? Non mi pare.....
Awe isn't everybody just so thrilled to be putting their brains to good use.
Michael Davis What an arrogant and condescending thing to say. What brain testing occupation do you have?
I didn't say anything about having a awesome job that test my brain all day. I'm in manufacturing also but luckily I get to do many different task throughout the day. I have had jobs like the ones showed were you are doing the same mundane, boring, repetitive job all day long and I wanted to kill myself so therefore I have the experience in life to were I can watch a video, see everybody with the same look of boredom and see the task and know that it sucks. I'm pretty sure there are studies done on the effects of repetitive task on the mind and body so if you want somebody else's opinion look it up.
@@MichaelDavis-zf6nt Not necessary. The FCA stamping facility in Sterling Heights uses a rotation schedule once employees are qualified at each work station. It is a voluntary program intended to add flexibility for the company and provide a change of scenery for employees. We have a similar program at the GM Poletown Assembly plant where I work. The funny thing is that a lot of employees choose to stay only at one work station even though floating adds up to $3.00 to the hourly wage. At the end of the day plant work is boring but a hell of a lot better than when I first started in the early eighties.
As time goes on , less and less people will be required . ????????
You would think this is impressive, but the thing is, the Honda plant in Marysvill Ohio was doing all of this and more way back in 1990. At the time it took Chrysler Sterling 24 hours to Chang over to run a new part in a press line.
I think that plant's future in stamping will rest more on those Jeep models, than the Dodge ones.
With electric vehicles coming, I'm thinking they'll become equals within their own markets..
Those robots have a lot of enthusiasm.... The humans.. not so much.
Rebot can't think idiots.
Not yet, but give them time... there is one thing they can do better than Edward Martinez... they can spell correctly... idiot.
@@grumpusmaximus9446 The thought of working on an assembly line would give me nightmares, so it's hard to blame them for not being very thrilled.
What's odd is, taking a part off a belt and hanging it on a rack seems like a perfect job for a robot, I wonder why they have people doing it?
@@bigredc222 simple reply? unions
If they had to work on the assembly line they'd be kissing every panel they pull.
Spot welding is one of the easiest jobs I ever did in my 15 years workshop experience. Funny that it takes monstrous,expensive robots to do these panels.
stamping is also very import
Still don't understand the $1495 destination fee for a domestic vehicle.
Many years ago destinations fees were the actually costs of bringing the car from the plant to the dealer. It was common for people to go to Detroit and drive their new cars home to save money.
Then congress passed a law that destination charges had to be the same everywhere in the country. My last new car I got from a dealer directly across the street from the plant it was built in, destination charges are the same as if I bought it in Hawaii.
@@forddon Figures congress had something to do with this. I should have known. Regulations from Washington only make our lives worse over time.
@@CarStory Funny thing is that the steel industry used to have something called the "three rivers plan" that equalized shipping costs across the country...The government sued the steelmakers to force them to charge based on actual distance...suddenly Japanese steel became cheaper for west coast buyers.
weird that they didn't automate the stacking and put people into something more useful. Like, I don't know... *quality control*
Crazy to think that most of the cars that will later be made with these parts will be in the junk yard within 10 years because of blown transmissions.
That's all there design schedules
I'm guessing the line was slowed way down for this video. That or Chrysler workers have easier jobs than us at Ford.
It's about that speed and we get frequent breaks
@@SuperBaconNinja Frequent breaks my ass lmao you must not be in Chassis
At Tesla it’s way more fast paced.
@@melseven5294 Don't look like to to me and I worked in a stamping plant for almost 40 years.
@@melseven5294 It is only running about 9 parts per minute. I remember hand loading presses we ran 10 parts per minute.
They’re pretending to build cars. They still haven’t figured out how, though.
Los carros. Cada día más. Desechables
Do the workers get to rotate through different jobs/roles inside the plant?
They do at my job.
They don't at mine. If you're on press, you're on that press until someone else quits or they need you somewhere else. If you're in assembly, well, have fun putting parts on a fixture for a robot all day long for the next 5-10 years
How difficult is it to make one of these dies after the design and engineering is complete?
Usually the upper and bottom die shoes are molded from cast iron. These will come into a die shop as very rough with no machined surfaces. These will then be put up onto a CNC machine with the bottom flat part being skimmed from a cutting tool. This will act as a datum so all the other pockets and surfaces can be machined accurately. A tool and die maker will then deburr the machined casting and start fitting all the various punches, wear plates, die steels, strippers, pressure pads, nitro, and other components. The die will then go for a lead check in the press to maker sure it is hitting at material thickness. The die maker will then take the die into press to make sure the die runs smoothly, spotting the part in and ultimately get a part that passes on the check fixture.
@@TheInceptum So does the die maker have a full sized stamping press at their premise to do test runs on panels?
@@bobolulu7615 In most cases, yes. The toolroom would coordinate with the press shop about scheduling a press for die trials away from production or in some cases if the die shop does not do production but instead does new build dies they will have a "spotting press" for trials.
@@bobolulu7615 Yes! The tool and die maker company has to have the same kind of large presses. But there is no automation needet to do the spotting and try out at the toon shop. The final spotting / adjusting is required on the production press line to receive the required surface quality. A lot of the equipment to build these kind of dies is very large and heavy.
Large CNC milling machines (about 18 foot machine bed) cranes up to 80.000 lbs lifting capacity. But there are also a lot of smaller parts in the die they been produced on smaller CNC milling machines like trim steels bending steels or post form inserts. All these parts are assembled later together with parts purchased from special manufactors like nitrogen gas springs, self-lubricating wear plates, guiding post / bushings, standard piercing punches / retainers or cams. The total time to build a side panel die set ( usually 6 or 7 include the blanking dies )from scratch to finished and accepted by the customer is about a year or more. A good build side panel die set will run 10 parts a minute without any scrap parts.
@@bobolulu7615 Yes, A number of them.
Thank you. ❤️
Hey !! .............. NO whining !
No Comment...
Just like the BMW factory
1:05 draw panel crack!
How TF did they let a split get into the demo reel? Bad batches can shut the plants down for hours!
@@walter.s.dempsey Walter, the Pb die is pulling slugs. Very well, that occurs occasionally and when the problem is detected either by fault in transfer or by the ones racking the parts then it is dealt with. The real problem here are the workers racking the parts. Check out the guy at the 2:00 mark. He's not even looking at the parts. Totally uninterested as well as the guy in camo just after him. This video should be an absolute embarrassment to this plant and watch the racking process of this comically large exit conveyor and tell me if ANYONE is checking the underside of these panels for defects? This is why at least that plant is "shut down for hours." BTW, I work for a foreign automaker in a Stamping plant and just watching this video alone tells me enough to know why these transplants have run circles around the domestics.
@@TheSunkenGrave I worked for GM at a stamping operation and even the slightest fucking split would sound the siren call of many F bombs on the racking line. This video is damn near a cringe compilation for me, as that sort of thing I wouldve hit the E stop let alone the cycle stop to put an end to this line. It would have ended up in the scrap pile, not even worth salvaging at the metal finishing department. Worthless. Yet they let these splits through. Me and my work partner would be sniffing out any sort of stress lines or cracks let alone full blown splits like that. I am fucking mad at this video. This is a demo reel of sadness. We would have a clockwise gaze inspection at each part, where we would circle with our eyes in protective gear the perimeter for defects, and have a scuff pad in our left hand to search for mounds where little dust particles may have had their place in the die. This is pathetic as hell and I would never buy from Chrysler. Careless. You can get many discounts by looking for these sort of dust mound defects at the dealer by pointing out these defects to the salesman and getting like $600 knocked off and driving off with a decent car however, just never buy a car with splits.
That is not a split. The panel hadn't even got through the next few dies yet. 🤦🤣🤣
@@melseven5294 thats for sure a split lol
Bravo👍
Now go watch a 1930's video of them building cars. 5X as many people there and zero robots. It's amazing how simple they make it to assemble now.
The automation and updated processes also make the workplace tremendously safer compared to the 1930's. It's not always about replacing humans for profit alone. Stamping, done wrong, can be incredibly dangerous.
👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼✅✅✅
I'm still dumbfounded that all those workers wear regular clothes shorts tennis shoes t-shirts something that you wear on a Sunday no PPO at all.
Theyre wearing kevlar sleeves, earplugs, and thick gloves.
Weird that a simple robot can't take the panel off the conveyor and put it on a rack.
They can. Why they stack them by hand I have no idea.
I don't think the Dart is still around, or will be. The Chrysler 200...saw it in an article as one of the 10 worst cars since 2010...lol.
O the days when Chrysler made the coolest, fastest and hottest big engine cars...regardless of quality.
I work at JNAP. Could you guys invest in some better racks already???? Please.....
I always did like the Sound of Goldfor some reason.🙄
Now if can get the robots to stack the panels in the rack and get an autonomous fork lift you’d eliminate even more workers.
They had that 17 years ago when I retired.
Wow, I believe in the next 10-15 years job opportunities will decrease in a high percentage, almost everything is going to have robots and humans won't work in factories anymore ( or any industry). Most jobs require a minimum A MINIMUM of s high school diploma, and believe me in that time frame that I mentioned a high school diploma isn't worth a dust.
I worked at this plant from 10/18/66. To 05/28/2002. I honestly never had an issue with any Hilo driver. I had to work with them to load steel blanks at the front of the press line, and work with another Hilo driver to take full racks and full boxes out from the back of the line. Never had a problem with any Hilo driver. I worked my last seven years as a floor man. And I loved that job, had a great foreman, and all the people on both press lines were very easy to work with. And I am very proud of making my living at this plant.
Uh my guy, do you think these things never fail??? On a bad night at my plant I can be clearing upwards of 50 faults. That's not including having to repair shit that fails during production.
@@chuckdomanski5828 Good job!
Everybody looks like they love there boring job☹️☹️
Added all company factory equipment brands in added all branches added all🇮🇳🇮🇳🇮🇳
Stacking on racks could easily be automated....but the unskilled union laborers need somthing to do....
You sound like you sit at a desk and stare at a screen all day. Pathetic.
And what do you do that takes so much skill?
German engineering 👌🏽
That stacking done by humans could be done by robots too.
it's the inspection of the parts that makes the humans necessary.
They need a safety helmet i think 😁
For what?
Utica Enterprises has been gone for a long time
I'm assuming this plant is still open. I hope those fellow Michiganders understand they have to do everything better than the "other guy" to keep those high paying Union jobs. The other guys....the Germans, Japanese, South Koreans. They all want money like you do.
It is. They supply my plant, Jefferson North.
that's old Technology, it's much faster.
FCA 🇧🇷 BETIM
Indica eu lá? Te pago. É sério.
@@northpole9251 infelizmente não estão dando cartas de indicação só agência.
FCA
Wander full
Imagine if houses were made this way! Shows you that the human labor has very little to do with product quality-that has to be built upon high quality components. So a $50,000 car can become worthless if the engine fails due to cost cutting in the wrong places.
3 fiat pulse Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram commander making machine I need every monthly send me farm veng district let go
I am interested in the scrap material of this company
It would be recycled.
Y
Sad human automatons working for their robotic overlords. Horrible.
LMAO!!! My guy I'm an electrician for FCA at Jefferson North. Those robots fuck up more times than I care to count.
Well the workers on the line do not seem very happy it's pretty mendane boring repetitive.
one step above mcdonalds. and they think they deserve $50/hr. O.o
Sorry but they don't think or make $50/hr
This press is so slow
The speed is low because if the speed is high then a miss stock may occur
Feel sorry for human robots !!!!
I need job I press tool industry plz tell
Brother submit your resume to FCA. We're hiring.
Каждую деталь щупают и осматривают.
Soon there will be very little jobs for humans to do on a automobile assembly plants. I'm glad I have a trade where I build and repair on my own. If I had the money I would buy me a robot wife and teach her my trades. I could hear her now, not now honey I hung thirty doors today.
BS
Now we got Biden I’m sure he’ll ship the last of those jobs off to China!! Anything but USA and thank the lord for truck tariffs! We would be so screwed without that
No, now we want to blow China up.
4 people standing there all fucking day? Well ... I could do all that work alone and be faster picking up those frames from the conveyer belt. The weight is less than 30lb. No wonder they had to be saved by taxpayer money. Complete laziness on a display
Sure is a LOT OF RECALLS BECAUSE OF THE ROBOTS 🚨😡👎🏼
Huh? It's been a while since I've looked through the NHTSA database, but robots weren't usually the problem.
No matter how well built theses cars are ... they are still garbage,chrysler needs to shut down for gd....there cars are not worth buying...i will always buy honda or toyota,not american
And you base your posting on what? Data? Opinion? Bias?
Yep, I always buy Japanese. Most of our American cars are ugly. The Mustang is an abomination. The Camaro and Challenger are pretty cool looking though.
Guess where most honda and toyotas are built...
@@ChadMc74 Pretty certain at your moms house.
We'll move to Japan then bitch. We don't need your kind in America
'
metal steel sheet is a so thin metal gauge...
not good vehicle with thin metal gauge...
very easily bendable...
not worth it
Has been about .030" since the 60s. Extra weight would do nothing but wreck gas mileage
@@georgenasrallah9410
'
hi G N...
no matter what drinking gasoline...
add extra gear speeding to save gas...
do real matter is a safe person life / less repair auto body shop
The metal is pretty flimsy in body shops in assembly plants too but once paint is applied and bracing the metal is very sturdy
What? Nobody from Auto-Die on here? Happy Thoughts!