Aplicação de adesivos estruturais em painéis de carros

The automobile industry is increasingly interested in reducing vehicle weight for greater speed, lower fuel consumption and emissions, through innovation of materials and processes. One way to do this is to seek the replacement of conventional processes by the use of structural adhesives. Structural adhesives are highly resistant materials, which can replace rivets, bolts and welds allowing the substrate / adhesive assemble is stronger than the substrate itself. One of the major advantages of gluing with respect to welding is its esthetic appearance, since it does not leave marks. For this reason, parts to be soldered require a minimum thickness so that the marks do not appear, since the pieces from gluing have no restriction as to the thickness. By replacing the vibration welding process for gluing process of the instrument panel parts of an automobile, one obtains a reduction of the thickness of the parts and therefore it decreases the weight of the car. This work aims to study the various structural adhesives that already exist on the market to be applied on the instrument panel. The mechanical test performed to measure the maximum adhesive strength was the Lap Shear Test at 23°C (room temperature), -35°C and 85°C. The types of adhesives used were the hot-melt and the bi-component. By the results obtained, it is in favor using the bi-component for application to the union of instrument panel parts

Implementação da metodologia lean manufacturing em uma linha de produção por meio de certificação interna

To the companies maintain competitive in the market, they need continuous improvement in quality and productivity. This continuous improvement can be achieved through lean manufacturing tools. The idea of lean manufacturing is to map the flow to identify the processes that don’t add value in the final product, according the customer specification, in others words is eliminate or reduce the waste on the production flow. However the implementation of lean manufacturing is not so simple and involves the resistance of the employees, lack of training and the lack of knowledge to make the implementation. The objective of this study is determinate the good practices and difficulties found by a multinational company in the field of healthy that aims implementing the Lean Manufaturing through an internal certification. The methodology used to approach the problem is a case of study that analyzes the information introduced through discussion made by a semi structured interview. The case study describes the steps to get the certification, involving the concepts of 5S, balancing, standardization and routine management. The literature and the study case showed that the good practices, such as productivity increases, safety level increases and the machine stability were accomplished, but the majority difficulties was found in cultural factors and planning. Some recommendations were proposed to the others companies, such as the elaboration of a qualification matrix and the review of the activities chronogram during the implementation. The way that the company found to implement Lean Manufacturing concepts was a creative method to show to everybody the objective and the target to be accomplished and is one way to recognize the effort through the certification