The Fiat plant in Pomigliano d’Arco has been awarded the prestigious 2012 Automotive Lean Production Award.
The award, was presented to Sebastiano Garofalo, manager of the Pomigliano d’Arco plant, at the ceremony organized by Agamus Consulting in partnership with Automobil Produktion magazine which took place on November 7th at the Leipzig Convention Center.
Comau was actively and directly involved in the technological upgrade of the Pomigliano d’Arco plant. The plant is equipped with 600 robots deployed on welding lines (designed by Comau and Fiat-Chrysler) that ensure the highest degree of modularity and simplified maintenance operations. Each line is currently equipped with 14 Comau robots, but is expandable to 18 robots for 84 welding points overall.
The result is a system which is distinguished by high flexibility, as well as reduced production costs and time-to-market. It is designed for use in the new Fiat plant in Serbia and the US Chrysler plants in Toledo and Sterling Heights.
The Automotive Lean Production Award is one of the most important acknowledgements in Europe as far as production plants are concerned. Since 2006, more than 700 car manufacturing plants from 15 countries have been nominated as potentials recipients.
The evaluation process of the Pomigliano d’Arco plant was based on the production system analysis and the application of lean manufacturing principles in terms of quality, maintenance, logistics and HR development.
The plant marks a center of excellence within Fiat Group and a concrete example of Comau technological vision applied to automotive production systems.
