[DerAlte]

Hyundai has expanded its factory at Sriperumbudur (Chennai) to handle manufacturing of the i10 / Grand, Xcent, Fluidic Verna etc. for India as well as export markets. The following is a pictorial report of the Hyundai Factory. To a regular car enthusiast, it is a mind-boggling experience - especially when one comes across their environment consciousness (this is a zero-effluent factory) and their high level of interaction with the local community & worker families.

The total capacity of the HMIL factory is 680,000 units (Plant 1: 330,000, Plant 2: 350,000), and they are operating at full capacity. This factory is one of 7 Hyundai plants worldwide, and is reputed in the Hyundai world as one of the best run. Let us go in to take a closer look at what they do, and how they do it.






Hyundai is Tamil Nadu's biggest investor, having invested $2.7 billion since 1996, apart from the $1.2 billion invested by vendor-partners. HMIL facilities include:

- 4 full-fledged canteens that dish out 22,000 meals a day
- Fleet of buses to every part of the city and surrounding areas, covering 6 lakh kilometers a month
- 2 fully equipped medical centers that operate 24x7....and a modern gymnasium
- Developmental programs – yoga, spoken English, computer literacy, financial planning etc.
- Home visits
- Care & share forum for employee spouses
- Children’s activity clubs



Cars awaiting dispatch in the shipment yard:



Team-BHP's Other Factory Reports:

Ford

Jaguar

Tata

Eicher

Mercedes

Piaggio

[DerAlte]

The HMIL factory consists of 2 Plants.

Plant 1, the original one set up in 1996 handles:
- Eon
- Santro
- Accent (for export only)
- Elantra
- i20
- Sonata
- Santa Fe

Plant 2 set up in 2007 handles:
- Xcent
- i10
- Grand i10
- Verna

Each plant typically consists of the following departments:

1. Foundry

2. Press shop. For pressing the sheet metal components required for:
- Door panels
- Side panels
- Chassis
- Roof elements and panels
- Bonnets
- Hatch / boot lids

3. Panel assembly, where individual sheet metal components of the following are welded together to produce:
- Doors
- Bonnets
- Hatch / boot lids
- Side panels
- Roof panels

4. Body assembly, welding together the following to produce the car shell:
- Chassis / floor pan
- Side panels
- Roof elements and Roof panel
- Temporary mounting of doors, bonnet and hatch / boot lid

5. Paint Shop: Painting is a completely robotized affair. This shop is pressurized so that contaminants don't get in, thus preventing painting failures. The area is out-of-bounds for outsiders and even most HMIL employees! Painting is carried out on a per car basis, so there is no variation of colour. When a car shell arrives from body assembly, the doors etc. are removed (they are temporarily mounted with 2 bolts per) and painted separately. The body shell, doors etc. are marked in such a way that, even though they arrive at the next line separately, they can be identified to arrive at the appropriate station just in time.

6. Assembly line:
- Front and Rear suspension module preparation
- Chassis 'Marriage'
- Trim line
- Final Line
- QC line ('OK' line)
- Tester line
- Road Test
- Shower Test
- Final Inspection line

7. To handle small repair jobs after assembly / testing, the following shops are present in the plant:
- Chassis Repair
- Touch-up paint booth
- Touch-up Repair

The following arrive at the assembly line as pre-assembled modules from vendors (including Hyundai Mobis, which handles modules from Korean vendors):
- Fuel & brake tube system
- Wiper Assembly
- Intake system module
- Fuel Tank
- Front-end module (radiator etc.)
- Front suspension module
- Rear suspension module
- Exhaust system
- Engine & transmission module
- Rear bumper
- Dashboard



On the right of the wide lane are the army of robots that handle panel welding (doors etc.). To the left are the chassis / body welding lines:


Each panel welding station has a troupe of robots handling everything from loading of pressings and welding together the pressings to stacking it up for further use:



This is the overhead transport line (in the chassis line) that brings bodies for the temporary mounting of doors:

[DerAlte]

Now, we are in the chassis line on which major body parts are brought together. Excellent use of space & time. Here comes the floor pan:


Some more smaller pieces are added:


This area is a maze, with its own army of positioning & welding robots. The only workers here are those assigned the responsibility of clearing problems (if any appear, by Murphy's Law)!


A team of robots welding the RHS panel to the floor pan. Another station and another team of robots weld the LHS panel:


Then comes the welding of the roof stiffening members, with its spectacular shower of sparks:


Then, the shell is carted away (all robotics, no human involvement) for subsequent operations:




The thing to wonder in this wonderful world - devoid of manual operations - is the sub-millimeter accuracy that the machines and transport / transfer lines achieve. This is the amazing world of closed-loop electrical & electropneumatic controls.

[DerAlte]

Look at the layout of the assembly section once again. We are now near the trim line:


Virtually everything that is to be mounted in the car comes as a pre-built assembly, not as individual components. This reduces the operation time to about 57 seconds at every mounting station:


Why 57 seconds? Because they make 53 'units' (different cars) per hour. Or 300,000 cars per year at full capacity:


On this part of the line, all cars have already been painted and their doors / bonnet / hatch / boot lid removed & queued up at other stations where they will be mounted finally. No, this is not a 2-tone paint job - the yellow part is a plastic cover used to protect areas prone to scratches.

Every part and assembly is queued up based on arrival of the 'unit' it will be mounted in. So, here comes a 'unit' - approaching the next 'station'. This is after mounting the dashboard. Even the roof lining & pillar claddings have gone in:


The next one could be (and usually is) a completely different model, in this case the Xcent. There is a further mix of RHD (domestic) and LHD (export) cars on the same line:


The central part of the dark yellow band is actually moving (rather creeping) constantly. Each car stays at a station for a fixed time, for a single + specific mounting operation. This part of the line is intentionally left empty to accommodate more stations if a new car requires it:


The specific dashboard for a car is rolled in - mounted on a gantry, designed to simply go through the door opening and get positioned accurately:


Two workers then fix it to the body with pneumatic drivers - 3 bolts on each side - as simple as that! The wiring harness is already in by the time it arrives at this station. Workers pull the connecting cables through the corresponding openings and attach them to the designated dashboard locations. This car is an LHD i10, and the next...


...an RHD Xcent!!!


Fuel tanks lined up for a simple 4-bolt mounting, and a few pipe + electrical connections. Takes the same 57 seconds to do, as at any other station. Workers aren't stressed out, as work-time study has accounted for enough time to finish that simple operation. Then, there is the line rest area where they can go and relax for a bit, while a substitute worker steps in:



Looks complicated with myriad variants of individual parts and assemblies, but the process is simplified to be a no-brainer for workers. Each station has a screen that 'tells' the worker:
- Which tool
- Which bit
- Which bolt or screw
- Which location
- What operation

The worker simply follows instructions on that screen, without having to rely on memory. The typical training period for getting a new worker (ITI qualified) up to production speed is merely a month. There are plenty of visual aids everywhere to help the worker pick the right individual part. Some parts have a mind-boggling variety - thus the system is critical to reducing errors, rework time and effort wastage. This is the aid for picking and verifying the right sunvisor for the model:

[DerAlte]

Chassis Marriage Line, the board says. Eh, what ? A-ha, they mean connecting the front suspension, rear suspension and drivetrain to the rest of the body and form the 'car':




Here come the bodies rolling in from the overhead transport line, and the lower parts mounted on AGVs from another part of the plant...





...to be automatically positioned precisely (sub-millimeter accuracy w.r.t. each other)...


... and 3 workers get busy with pneumatic drivers for 57 seconds mounting the required bolts. No brainer, right? Well, sometimes, there is a push required here & a pull required there to get things for aligning holes of parts mounted on the engine (e.g. the air filter clamp):



The rear suspension, and off you go:

[DerAlte]

Finally, everything that needs to go into the car has gone in. It's now time to mount the doors. They got painted together with the body some time back, and are waiting at this station (& the next; one each for the front and rear doors). Notice that the seats, boot lid and bonnet have already been mounted at previous stations. Doors are the last to go on.

While the car is still creeping along the belt, a worker positions the gantry holding the door, hops in and mounts the bolts that hold the door to the body. The gantry moves along till the worker hops out and uncouples it. After this, the worker loads the door for the next car in line and waits for it to arrive at the designated location. The cycle starts all over again:

[DerAlte]

We come to the part where humans step in - no robot can match the information processing ability of people. Here is where the quality control folk ensure that fit & finish is top notch, nothing shakes, rattles or jams, and everything works as expected by customers. Actually, the OK line is one of 3 where cars undergo quality control tests...the other 2 being a drive on the road and final tester round. Then, there is the shower test, where they check for effectiveness of door + windshield seals against water seepage:


In the OK line, workers sort out any problems that can be corrected by a few well-placed blows, or a push here and a nudge there. In this case, the worker lands a few hammer taps to get the bonnet latch ring perfectly aligned:


Anything mounted with a hinge (doors, bonnet, hatch / boot lid) is opened & slammed shut a few times. Doesn't close properly? Out comes the hammer for a few not-so-soft taps on the offending part (usually the latch ring):


There is an entire army of workers performing this job. Each car comes with its own chart of numerous checkpoints, which the workers certify they are able to correct, or mark it for substantial correction later:


They even peel back the protective films (e.g. the white strip on the rear bumper, or the transparent cling film on the taillights) to ensure the part underneath isn't damaged. The films are put back on carefully after checking:


Whatever can move, shake or rattle is pushed around (with a heavy hand, I must say). All lights are switched on for checking:


Parts that one can easily miss out (e.g. model-dependent chrome garnish) are crosschecked:


And finally comes a team of 4 who look even more closely at fit and finish, panel gaps etc.:



And the show goes on! Cars waiting to be road-tested:

[DerAlte]

Spread over 535 acres, Hyundai follows eco-friendly manufacturing practices in order to conserve resources & reduce consumption to the maximum possible extent.

Zero Discharge – 100% recycling of waste water. All effluents in used water is treated back to normalcy, with that water being reutilized for in-plant processes. Treated sewage water is used for landscaping, while waste paint sludge is processed and sent to cement industries for co-processing.







Rain water is harvested in 4 ponds with a total capacity of 2.75 lakh kiloliters:


Waste wood packing material is used for making in-house furniture, as well as desks etc. for the nearby schools:




Apart from the above, HMIL has maximized the deployment of energy-frugal electrical devices all over. A penny saved is a penny earned, as the adage goes!

[DerAlte]

The plant has a 56-acre green belt, with lawn and flowering shrubs as well as 20,666 trees and 35,000 saplings, helping in creating a fresh environment. There is a full-fledged farmhouse which has a plant nursery, water aeration pond, and a serene and quiet Korean-style pond...complete with koi fish:




Its own miniature waterfalls:


The nursery - they also grow some Korean herbs & vegetables here:



The aeration pond with its fountains:


The Korean pond garden, which has to have an island with a tree (wish they could keep the water free of algae):


A pergola to sit & relax under, contemplating nature:


Colourful koi fish:

[GTO]

Thread moved from the Assembly Line to the Indian Car Scene. Thanks for sharing!

[girimajiananth]

Originally Posted by DerAlte

- 2 fully equipped medical centers that operate 24x7....

Awesome tour . My company has developed software to manage this medical center (occupational health center) . Though I have visited HMIL several times , I could never manage to get a detailed tour due to security restrictions. I could only sneak peek into these assembly lines . Are all cars coming out of the assembly line road tested ? Were you not allowed to visit the test track ?

[mallumowgli]

Nice report - thanks for sharing. Actually I missed an opportunity to visit the Hyundai Paint shop in one of my earlier companies. Could have boasted about it now

[sandeepmohan]

WOW. Don't know how I missed this post which seems to have been put up some time ago.

Can't believe Hyundai operates at such high standards and on top of it, taking good care of their employees, providing opportunity outside the factory space.

[puchoo]

DerAlte : Loved going through this report come tour , thanks for that , i can only imagine the effort going into getting this together!!

[DerAlte]

Originally Posted by girimajiananth

... Are all cars coming out of the assembly line road tested ? Were you not allowed to visit the test track ?

Yes, all cars are road tested.

Yes, we went to the track, but there were no cars being tested at that time. It is a track with mixed road quality, including some really bad 'metalled' stretches like in rural areas.