Ford Motor Company Limited

Western Atlas Inc.

John E Robertson

Abid Ghuman

Bruce Giezentanner

James Wayne Lowe

Robert M Long

Philip Spring

Kenneth R Miller

Marsha J Rosso

Michael W Pitt

A workpiece presenter for fixturing a workpiece of a vehicle assembly is provided, including a platform, and a tooling plateremovably connected to the platform, the tooling plate including a planar bodyfor supporting fixture toolsholding the workpiece and including a connector mechanism to allow the planar bodyto be removably connected with the platformand the tooling plate having a locater mechanismto locate the planar bodywith respect to the platformin a repeatable manner.

Workpiece presenter for a flexible manufacturing system

A tooling plate to fixture a workpiece for a vehicle subassembly is provided, including a planar bodyfor supporting fixture toolsfor holding a workpiece, a connector mechanism to allow the planar bodyto be removably connected with a workpiece presenter, and a locater mechanismto locate the planar bodywith respect to the workpiece presenterin a repeatable manner.

Tooling plate for a flexible manufacturing system

An automotive vehicle is provided having a body being assembled by a joining process line from a plurality of workpieces joined into a plurality of subassemblies according to the steps of providing templates arranged in a predetermined alignment to form a process line, with each template being generated from a defined set of standardized task stations which are operative to perform a joining process on a workpiece of the subassemblies, fixturing workpieces in a workpiece presenter provided in the task stations, at least one workpiece presenter including a tooling plate removably connected and precision located on a platform of a workpiece presenter, and sequentially joining the workpieces together to form the body.

Vehicle body

A framing system having upright stands on opposite sides of a vehicle body support. Welding fixtures are mounted on the stands having welding tools for performing welding operations on a vehicle body. The stands are supported for linear movement toward and away from an operative position adjacent the vehicle body support. Loaders are provided for transferring fixtures to and from the stands.

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Troy, MI, United States of America

John E Robertson