“This is Mission Impossible”

That was literally what we were told by the Tier 1 supplier when they asked for our help.

With only two weeks to go before the first saleable vehicles were required at a mainstream OEM a red flag was raised: the production supplier of the second and third row seat frames would no longer support the pre-production build. There was no manufacturing process or method, only obsolete prototype jigs were available and components were of unknown engineering level.

In response, SDC took the latest 3D CAD model data as a known baseline input, produced a master BOM and drawings of the 300 components and set up a bonded inbound storage area.

Teams were established to receive, identify stock check and quarantine obsolete components and then to manufacture or modify all components to the latest level.

Jigs and tooling were assessed and omissions and modifications were designed by SDC’s in house tooling engineers and manufactured in our tool room.

Existing known issues were extracted from the customer and quality alerts, weld samples and specific instructions put in place.

Weld cells, sub assembly lines and end of line inspection areas established together with a pedigree checklist for each seat.

2 FARO CMM’s were used to commission and approve the manufacturing process, weld integrity was assured by in house teardown and correlated to independent NDT testing.

In conclusion, all this was completed within the two week window and over the following six weeks 150 vehicle sets were produced on time and to the required quality. SDC had achieved “the impossible”.