Assembly testing technology for the new generation of electric vehicles from BMW

The rapidly increasing demand for electric vehicles with simultaneously fluctuating call-off figures requires car manufacturers and their suppliers to rethink and change their production concepts. For the new BMW i4, the so-called cell contacting systems (ZKS) are manufactured on automated assembly test systems from AKE technologies GmbH.

ZKS are responsible for the interconnection of the individual battery cells in the electric vehicle. The cell contacting systems, which are installed in the new generation of electric vehicles from BMW, are characterised by a special component design. The new so-called wire-laying technology for cell contacting ensures very low material costs - compared to applications with integrated wiring harness or FPC foils. The signal transmission is freely programmable, which makes the product very flexible. In addition, this variant offers advantages in automation. For example, assembly steps previously carried out by employees can be replaced by fully automated and tested processes.

Intelligent manufacturing concept with a high degree of automation to cover a wide range of component variants

Within the scope of the project, a system was developed for our customer that assembles and tests four different cell contact systems in a cycle time of 20 to 26 seconds - depending on the component variant. The production line is designed as a fully automated system with 10 integrated robots.

After the automatic feeding of cell connectors and current taps, the basic bodies of the ZKS are equipped with voltage taps and temperature sensors. The pre-assembled cell connectors are automatically transferred to the ZKS carrier part. Ultrasonic or hot caulking processes offer the optimal solution for connecting the carrier parts, which serve to protect the cell connectors and complete the individual components to form the finished cell contact system. After component identification for traceability, the production data is transferred to the MES (Manufacturing Execution System).

The systems offer an intelligent production concept to cover several component variants without set-up processes. Thanks to scalable system concepts, different cycle times can be realised and adaptation to changes in the number of units or process changes is also possible without any problems - a decisive advantage in the fast-moving e-mobility industry.

Flexible concept creates planning reliability for OEMs

Thanks to the innovative component design and the associated optimised manufacturing processes for automated production, together with our customer we offer highly reliable series production that can react flexibly to fluctuations in unit numbers and includes favourable options for capacity expansion. The innovative series production offers OEMs planning security, lowers the parts prices of the integrated components and helps to further advance the market penetration of electric vehicles.

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