uwe braun GmbH is pleased to share the article below for your review.  The article entitled ‘Qualitat im Werk Saarlouis’ (Quality in the Saarlouis Plant) came from a recent Ford Motor Co. (Ford) internal publication (Magazine) published in German.  We have taken the liberty to translate the message for you.  The article talks about the Ford Saarlouis Plant located in Germany.  This plant is the lead plant for the Ford Focus.   The article discusses how ‘continuous’ improvement is expected by Ford from its Saarlouis plant.  During their “quality offensive” Ford Saarlouis noticed that the optical preparation (surface inspection lighting technology) for painting was not up to date.  The positive quality improvement experiences already made on the Saarlouis ‘polishing’ operations were supposed to be implemented within the ‘paint’ preparation area also.

There were tests performed by Ford to compare the results against the current surface inspection lighting.  A Ford 6-Sigma team was formed to accompany the test series.  Tests were performed using trial booths from 2 different suppliers and used 2 different inspection philosophies (horizontal versus vertical fixture orientation).  After several weeks of test runs the results only allowed one conclusion:   Test System 1 [uwe Braun GmbH] provided a significant improvement in the detection of surface defects. 

Diagnosis of the results (Graph in article) show that Test System 1 [Blue][Uwe Braun System] had better results than the current system, while Test System 2 results [different Vendor] were actually even worse than the current system.

Comment by the 6-Sigma team include:

• [System 1 provided] “Surface defect detection after polishing”  
• [There was] “Significantly visible improvement of defect detection and the connected repair work with System 1 (blue)(uwe braun)”

Note (uwe braun GmbH):  Subsequent to the tests as discussed the Ford Saarlouis plant replaced the prior surface inspection lighting with surface inspection lighting from uwe braun GmbH.   It appears that this particular application is for inspection of the roof.

Note (uwe Braun GmbH):  The translations under the pictures at the bottom of the article are:  ‘Vor dem Umbau’ (Before the Conversion), ‘Nach dem Umbau’ (After the Conversion).

Summary

Ford Saarlouis is VERY pleased with their decision.  A substantial number of Automotive Plants around the world are also pleased with their decision to use the world-leading Uwe Braun technology.  We look forward to providing superior defect inspection results to our potential new customers.