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Renault Invests €308 Million in the Cléon Plant for Production of a New Diesel Engine and Gearbox


March 2006
 Filed under: RENAULT CORPORATE Car News | RENAULT CORPORATE Headlines
March 22, 2006

Building on its renowned excellence in diesel engine technologies, Renault has developed a new 2.0 dCi (M9R) engine and a new six-speed gearbox (PK4) to appear on Mégane II, Laguna II, Espace IV and Vel Satis. Both units were co-developed with Nissan under the Renault-Nissan Alliance. To ready its Cléon plant in Normandy, France for making the new powertrain, Renault invested a total of €308 million: €250 million for engine production and €58 million for gearbox production.
This investment addressed three main objectives:

- Manufacture a Renault engine achieving benchmark status and featuring state-of-theart technologies;
- Achieve the highest standard of quality and reliability to satisfy Renault customers;
- Roll out a manufacturing process with maximum rigour in safety conditions, operator ergonomics and respect for the environment.

Renault production of the first Alliance powertrain is in line with the strategies of both Alliance partners, who are seeking top-three ranking in key technologies among automotive groups worldwide, with each partner leading its specific fields of excellence.

Production shops at the forefront of modern technology

Major investments

Development of the new 2.0 dCi engine drew investment of €500 million: €200 million for product/process engineering, €250 million for capital expenditure, and €50 million for vendor tooling. The current production rate is 1,000 engines a week, with one shift. This will build up gradually as the engine appears on more models in the Renault range, to reach 8,000 engines a week in the longer term.

A workshop exclusively assigned to the new engine was built at the Cléon site. Of the 10 production lines making up the new shop, four were built from scratch: crankshaft machining, cylinder block machining, assembly, and testbenches.

A total of €51 million was invested on the introduction of new technologies, including €25 million on the installation of 18 testbenches.

Three other lines – cylinder head machining, camshafts, and conrods – were carried over from existing lines, meaning M9R production also benefits from previous investments over the last few years to set up flexible lines at Cléon. For example, it took just €9 million to set up the cylinder-head line for the M9R engine, whereas a new line would have cost more than €30 million. And the conrod machining line cost €1.6 million, compared with the €17 million it would have taken to build a new line from scratch.


New M9R assembly line

Of the four brand-new production lines, one is exclusively assigned to M9R. It covers a floor surface area of 6,800 square metres, and represents a total length of 1.2km. Automation is highly advanced, with 51 of the 144 workstations fully automated and 30 semi-automated. Screw fitting, for example, is 100% electric, and silicon seal removal and engine sealing tests are fully automated.


Engine manufacturing process

A car engine is a complex assembly of 300 to 350 parts, of widely varying characteristics. For strategic reasons, some parts may be developed and made by Renault, but most (around 80%) are bought from outside suppliers and delivered ready to fit to Renault powertrain plants. Engine manufacture involves around 100 different technologies, covering machining operations such as milling and turning, and assembly operations such as bonding and screwing.


Machining of main engine parts

Five strategic engine parts are usually made at Renault powertrain plants: the cylinder head, camshaft, crankshaft, cylinder block and conrods. Incoming blanks (in steel, cast iron or aluminium, mainly) are machined in a series of operations to take on the characteristics of ready-to-fit parts. The highly automated machining lines make up to 15,000 parts per week, implementing sophisticated technologies under extremely efficient production conditions. The controllers of these automated production lines need advanced technical skills, to ensure uninterrupted machine reliability for unwavering quality of the finished parts, the precision of which is measured in microns (thousandths of a millimetre).


Engine assembly

The machined parts, along with parts from outside suppliers, are delivered to the assembly line. The upper engine side (cylinder head and timing subsystem, with valves, springs, camshaft, etc.) and low engine side (cylinder block, conrods, pins, pistons, segments, crankshaft, etc.) are built up separately, then the cylinder head is assembled on the cylinder block and the engine accessories fitted (belts, injection system, intake and exhaust manifolds). An assembly line makes up to 18,000 engines per week, which is one every 20 seconds. Because of the wide diversity in components, quality management requires an efficient system for monitoring compliance throughout the manufacturing process. The final stage involves testing the engines on benches to check actual operation at different running speeds. Once they have been declared ready to fit, the finished engines are taken to the body assembly plants for fitting on the cars, together with their gearboxes.


Major redesign in logistics

Production release for the M9R engine brings a major innovation in the form of “build-to-order” logistics, which means engine manufacture is triggered by a customer order, just like cars are assembled in response to customer orders at the body assembly plant. This calls for strict compliance with a locked production sequence, to FIFO (first in first out) principles. The main advantage is in stock management, because the plant can order the parts it knows will be needed over a six-day period. To minimize the volume of parts stored on-site, stock control tracks actual part consumption, applying the kanban system to ensure parts are ordered at exactly the same rate as they are consumed.

Transport operations within the plant have also undergone a number of upgrades. Truck routes have been greatly shortened. The trucks pull noise-proof trailers with white tyres to avoid marking the floor. And packaging has been redesigned to do away with cardboard in favour of long-life recipients.


PK4 gearbox

A total of €58 million was invested in the Cléon plant to prepare for production of the new PK4 sixspeed manual gearbox, specially designed to match the advanced driveability of the M9R engine. Four new production lines were set up, handling differential machining, differential assembly, housing machining, and sliding gear finishing. The PK4 production capacity at Cléon is 5,000 gearboxes a week.

Two new testbenches were added, at a cost of €1 million. The total gearbox test time was doubled, to 1.45 minutes. Tests were matched more closely to real-life conditions, through five measurement parameters (synchronization force, engagement, shift, drag, synchronization and engagement pulse). Load was added to represent vehicle weight. And a system was installed for simulating uphill acceleration and downhill deceleration. All operators received 110 hours of training, along with dexterity school courses under the Renault Production Way. A special skills school was set up to provide training on mechanism housing assembly, and course coverage was then extended to other parts.

By way of skills capitalization, extensive interchange on best practice was sought with other Renault powertrain plants, to develop standards that would be applicable across all sites.


Top-class quality right from production startup

Design-to-Quality and capitalization

For production release of the M9R engine, Design-to-Quality was rolled out across the whole product and process design stage. Design-to-Quality is a Nissan-derived process addressing two main objectives: high reliability for new powertrains, and improved reliability for existing units. It is based on extensive carry-over of existing parts along with implementation of thorough analytical methods to manage the introduction of reliability-oriented innovations in the manufacturing process.

A year before the new engine arrived at the Cléon plant, production teams (operators, BWT leaders and shop managers) at the new M9R workshop visited Renault’s Powertrain Prototype Centre (CRPM) in Rueil-Malmaison, near Paris, to test out the operating modes determined by process engineers and validate them from the standpoints of quality and ergonomics.

The Cléon plant is a cornerstone of Renault’s manufacturing system; making the F9 (1.9 dCi) and G9 (2.2 dCi) diesel engines and the F4 (2-litre) petrol engine. When designing the production process for the new powertrain, project teams factored in this prime experience in diesel engines, and sought further input from other powertrain production sites such as Valladolid (Spain), where the K9K (1.5 dCi) engine is made.

Capitalization on existing know-how yielded many production-line developments, such as automated screw-fitting systems, error-proof guards, camera control, and various poka-yoke systems (a 6 Japanese expression for a foolproofing device that physically prevents errors or oversights in manufacturing operations). A good example is the operator action control system that guards against the heightened risk of error entailed by product diversity: a sensor located at the end of the parts supply unit checks that the operator has taken up the right part at the right time for the engine currently standing at the workstation.


Testbenches and clean room, two key points in the manufacturing process

The engine testbench line, inspired by Nissan production practice, tests 130 functions on all engines coming off the production line, to ensure the highest possible quality. The 18 benches test up to 8,000 engines per week. Test routines (specially adapted from the Nissan petrol-engine routines to match the specific properties of diesel engines) run for nearly 12 minutes.

All M9R engines assembled at Cléon go through a pressure-controlled clean room for dust-free fitting of injectors and high-pressure pipes.


Standardization and training

Another feature of M9R engine production at Cléon is the advanced degree of standardization, with 100% application of the Renault Production Way (SPR), whose primary goal is to develop skills through full-scale rollout of standard working practices, along with appropriate training. The M9R-PK4 powertrain is the first to reap full product and process benefit from SPR right from project onset.

Powertrain engineering teams begin by writing up detailed process operation sheets setting out the precise results expected from each operation. The next step is to determine the best way of actually performing the operation: how the parts should be arranged and taken up, how the tools should be used, etc. This “standard operation” is written up on a standard operation sheet, to give a very precise step-by-step description of operation key points, i.e. all points at which quality or safety might be compromised if the standard were not complied with meticulously. Each workstation has at least one standard operation sheet. For the M9R project, operators at the Cléon plant took an active part in writing up their own standard operation sheets, for full and effective buy-in of optimally efficient working practice.

Because operator training is a major prerequisite for proper implementation of standards under an effective quality programme, around €1 million was invested in training for the M9R engine at Cléon, representing 250 to 500 hours for each of the 103 people involved.

All operators concerned received special training at the various dexterity schools set up for the purpose. Under a programme developed on the basis of Alliance-wide best practice, dexterity schools are run at all Renault group plants, to train operators in optimally efficient workstation use in their specialities.

Along similar lines, special skills schools have been set up to tackle highly specific issues such as fitting of the injection rail and pipes. Leading the way here, Cléon is the first plant to run a special skills school for fork-lift truck operators. 7


Strong emphasis on working conditions and the environment

Safety and ergonomics

Safety was a very important design criterion for the M9R engine shop. Safety teams were closely involved in all machine design stages, from initial validation of drawings, through to machine inspection at the supplier site, and final compliance of the installed machines.

Many advances have been made in workplace ergonomics, including optimized lighting, hoists with touch-sensitive handles, and workstation height adaptation for more comfortable access.


Environment

One of the priorities of the M9R-PK4 powertrain project was environment-consciousness, through waste management and effective pollution control for air, water and soil.

The M9R production shop, for example, features a network of double-walled spouts and gutters for carrying machine lubricant fluids to an in-plant treatment unit. Machines are surrounded by gutters and sumps to lead off any accidental fluid leakage. An automatic suction system removes oil mist and filters the air prior to discharge into the atmosphere. Metal swarf is retrieved for recycling. On the PK4 gearbox assembly line, wastewater is taken off via a specific network. And the fluid used for cleaning parts prior to assembly is reused after centrifuging to remove extraneous oil.

Websites: www.renault.com;www.media.renault.com

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