Automotive manufacturers are constantly challenged to achieve consistent results quickly. Any defects in workmanship can be dangerous—requiring recalls that cost time, money, and resources while negatively impacting the manufacturer’s reputation.
So, ensuring top-notch quality and consistency for all manufacturing processes is a major goal for any automotive manufacturer. However, every manufacturing plant still needs to meet certain production goals as well—or else production falls behind and sales may taper off.
There are many ways that an automotive company can use stainless steel carts to achieve their quality and productivity goals in a consistent manner.
1: Quickly Moving Large Parts That Are Too Bulky or Heavy to Lift
Many parts used in automobiles are too big and heavy for a single employee to safely move on their own. These parts could be dropped and damaged, or fall on someone and cause bodily harm. Yet, using a forklift or crane may be out of the question for a confined space like a factory.
For these bulky parts that are hard to move, a stainless steel cart could be the ideal compromise. The part could be loaded into the cart and then moved with ease because of the cart’s caster wheels.
This also applies to moving lots of smaller parts at once. Many stainless steel carts are designed to hold smaller baskets or trays in place—allowing automotive manufacturers to put many parts on a single cart at once. The advantage here is that it allows manufacturers to move parts in bulk between different manufacturing/finishing processes.
2: Drying Off Parts After a Cleaning Process
Many automotive parts have strict surface condition requirements. Scratched, scuffed, or dirty surfaces could, for example, prevent ball bearings from moving freely or cause crankshafts/camshafts to damage the timing belt in an engine.
To prevent this, these parts are put through a variety of processes by different manufacturers that use special chemical solutions to strip away surface contaminants. However, the parts will often need to be air-dried before they can be put through the next step of the manufacturing process to remove excess cleaning chemicals and prevent staining.
Stainless steel carts can provide a safe container with plentiful air flow to allow freshly-cleaned parts to dry as they move to the next phase of the manufacturing process.
3: Easy Long-Term Storage of Parts
Some manufacturers prep more parts than they need at that time. Whatever the reason is, these parts need to be stored safely, while still being easy to access when they’re needed.
Mobile steel carts can be easily set aside while loaded with a surplus of parts and retrieved at a later date. With carts, parts aren’t buried in a large pile that has to be taken apart to find whatever is needed. Instead, each cart can be loaded with neatly organized baskets that make finding and bringing those inventoried parts back to the factory floor easy.
Why Stainless Steel?
Automotive production environments can expose carts to a variety of stress factors. For example, high temperatures, corrosive chemicals, and heavy impacts are all too common. Stainless steel excels at resisting these stress factors—helping to prolong the useful life of automotive manufacturing carts for as long as possible.
Learn more about mobile carts in Marlin’s free guide: