Piston verification improves engine assembly process at Ford.

At the Ford engine plant in Windsor, Ont., Canada, A engineers needed an automated process to verify that the right pistons ended up in the right engines. Because different piston assemblies--distinguished by one of three alphanumeric codes--are run on the same line, they could easily be mixed up resulting in engine misbuilds.

Groups of four pistons are automatically placed in trays that are conveyed to an engine assembly station. While all four pistons loaded in each tray should be identical, loading errors can occur, especially during batch changes. While most errors