The reporter moved the rear door of the Jeep Wrangler and looked for the pins to slide into the waiting hinges.
It wasn’t obvious at first, but with some direction from a nearby voice to shift the door right a bit, the blue pins suddenly appeared.
The door could then basically slide into place.
The scene, using a virtual reality headset, battery pack and two “handles” with triggers to grasp objects, re-created what might happen on the Wrangler assembly line, but it wasn’t close to the Toledo Assembly Complex in Ohio, where the Wrangler is built, even though the demonstration setting was designed to look like one of the stations there.
Instead, this action on the afternoon of May 8 took place inside Stellantis’ massive CTC complex in Auburn Hills, Michigan, as the reporter for the Detroit Free Press, part of the USA TODAY Network, and others got to see and experience the company’s virtual reality lab, with presentations by Keenan O’Brien, head of the digital process engineering center; Joe Dzwonkowski, virtual reality design review specialist, and Don Clack, 3D printing and mixed reality specialist.
The lab is sized so an entire assembly line station can be reviewed. One benefit, according to the company, which owns the Jeep, Ram, Chrysler, Dodge and Fiat brands, is to help ergonomics teams “fine-tune platform heights, set ‘golden zones’ for an assembly operator’s reach and refine part handling techniques for greater safety and efficiency.”
But it can also help resolve issues and reduce downtime and associated costs before production begins, according to the company, pointing to hundreds of times where it said that has happened.
“For example, VR was used to help determine the optimal vehicle height for making underbody electrical connections at the Sterling Heights and Warren Truck assembly plants,” according to the company.
Dzwonkowski explained that the process makes it “easy to check various what-if scenarios during design review.”
The “arena,” where the virtual reality action takes place, measures 24 feet by 20 feet; the entire room is 40 feet by 42 feet to accommodate reviews by various engineers and supplier and assembly plant representatives. The lab dates to 2018 and has gone through numerous phases. It’s part of a network of nine similar sites in North America, Europe and South America.
The lab includes a 3D printer to prototype tools to more quickly solve manufacturing challenges. The process was used, for instance, to create a new cost-saving paint tape line tool during the Jeep Grand Cherokee launch at the Detroit Assembly Complex – Mack plant, according to Clack.
Contact Eric D. Lawrence: elawrence@freepress.com
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Stellantis’ car-making tools include VR headsets, 3D printing
