Robot Dog Helps Ford Control Quality At Valencia Assembly

Back in 2020, Ford teamed up with Boston Dynamics for a manufacturing pilot program that involved the use of two robot “dogs” – Fluffy and Spot – which were tasked with scanning assembly plant floors and assisting engineers in retooling those facilities. That program clearly worked, as The Blue Oval ultimately expanded those efforts and currently uses the same sort of robot dogs to complete a variety of tasks at more than one plant. That includes helping to ensure that Ford avoids costly downtime at its Valencia Assembly plant in Spain, too.

According to the Detroit Free Press, a robot dog named Sentinel is patrolling the floors at Valencia, all in an effort to spot potential issues. The robot can smell leaking oil from machinery, or even overheating equipment, all in an effort to keep things humming along with minimal downtime that could occur from a production stoppage, or even things that can negatively impact vehicle quality, too. Over the past year, Sentinel has helped reduce the cost of operating that machinery by five percent, saving an additional 10 percent on parts and human labor required to repair machinery as well.

“The robot knows the points it needs to cover and when, and it can find its optimal way to get there,” said Paula Carsi, Ford’s manufacturing innovation manager for Europe and International Markets. “Since it has the plant environment recorded in its (central processing unit) and it is able to navigate by using the lidar and camera, identifying and avoiding objects.”

“With this kind of robot, you are able to do the thermal and leak test in spaces that it may be difficult or risky to get people to do it manually. As soon as we identify an anomaly with those sensors, we raise an alert into that platform and the maintenance team in the plant knows they need to go and check or fix the problem that is there. We have reduced failures that were stopping the lines … because we were able to advance those problems by capturing some of those anomalies.”