Too often we hear bad news within manufacturing. Poor sales, struggling economies and factories moving overseas are typical headlines. However, there’s some good news to share. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) recently confirmed a significant investment of $166 million in three new press lines at its old Sterling Stamping Plant located in Michigan.
The investment is coming as the facility celebrates 50 years of producing body panels and assemblies. It includes the purchase and installation of two High Speed Servo Tandem press lines (each 180 inches) and one large Servo Progressive press line.
The Tandem Press system consists of multiple presses in series. Under each press is a single die positioned to perform an incremental function to make the final stamped part. A Progressive Press is a single press that produces parts at a high speed directly from a single coil of steel.
The new presses will improve reliability and maintainability, while at the same time reducing energy usage and increasing output rate.
The press’ servo drive allows for programmable control and movement of the ram speed at any position in the press stroke. This is unlike a mechanical press that operates at a fixed speed.
In total, the three presses will increase the number of stampings produced by nearly 75,000 a day (or 20 million a year). Currently, Sterling Stamping produces 62 million stampings annually.
Sterling Stamping is recognized as the largest stamping plant in the world. It is one of six facilities in the FCA North American family that stamps and sub-assembles parts from sheet metal. Some of the parts it produces include: hoods, roofs, liftgates, side apertures, fenders and floor pans. Those parts are then shipped to several of the Company’s U.S., Mexican and Canadian facilities to be welded and assembled together to form the bodies of such vehicles as:
- Dodge Grand Caravan; Chrysler Town & Country - Windsor (Ont.) Assembly Plant
- Dodge Dart; Jeep Compass; Jeep Patriot - Belvidere (Ill.) Assembly Plant
- Dodge Durango; Jeep Grand Cherokee - Jefferson North (Detroit) Assembly Plant
- Chrysler 200 - Sterling Heights (Mich.) Assembly Plant
- Jeep Cherokee - Toledo (Ohio) Assembly Complex
- Ram Trucks - Warren (Mich.) and Saltillo (Mexico) Truck Assembly Plants
Today, Sterling Stamping has 17 lines of major Stamping Presses, three Progressive Presses and three Blankers, ranging from 400 to 4,000 ton capacity, totaling 89 presses. These presses supply Sterling Stamping’s internal sub-assembly welding shop which is comprised of individual lines that are equipped with more than 720 total robots. The facility currently processes more than 500,000 tons of steel and 14,000 tons of aluminum annually, employing 2,300.
The Sterling Stamping facility shows that older operations aren’t always backwards thinking or unproductive and with this kind of funding, FCA’s light vehicle assembly is here to stay.