Volvo Cars’ new plant in Košice, Slovakia, has a maximum capacity of 250,000 cars per year, and production is planned to start in 2027. Volvo Cars aims to fully electrify its vehicle lineup and is adding this new European facility to expand its global production capacity.
Dürr provides turnkey planning and implementation of various final assembly technologies in the areas of conveyor, filling, and testing systems. For Volvo Cars, this means less coordination effort, greater planning reliability, and systems that are optimally coordinated throughout the entire final assembly process. This is enabled by NEXT.assembly, Dürr’s holistic concept for final assembly. It integrates consulting services as well as components from conveyor, assembly, filling, and testing technology as modular components into a seamless solution.
Future-proof filling technology
For the final assembly stage, the premium automotive manufacturer uses Dürr technology that has already proven successful at many other Volvo plants. One example is the filling systems, which feature special handling systems and five parallel consoles ensuring efficient production at Volvo Cars’ site in Torslanda, Sweden. In Košice, the filling equipment is designed to meet future requirements. This includes the ability to integrate new low conductivity coolants as well as next-generation air conditioning refrigerants required by future European legislation.
Precision end-of-line inspection technology
“Volvo Cars has exceptionally high standards when it comes to measurement accuracy. We are very familiar with these standards, as Dürr equips all Volvo sites worldwide with vehicle geometry and headlight alignment technology,” says Jörg Neumann, Director of End of Line (EOL) Product Line at Dürr in Germany. Košice is no exception. At this site, the x-wheel system will be used to ensure precise measurement and adjustment of the chassis. Featuring the x-3Dsurface non-contact sensor, it enables high-precision, area-based measurements and can be used with any tire and body shapes. The driving axis determined during this process specifies the alignment of the headlamps and the LED modules installed within them. As new headlamp generations have more and more LEDs in order to enable distinctive designs and a wide range of functions, the requirements for light measurement have also increased. Dürr has specifically developed the x-light measuring and setting system for headlamps specifically to meet these requirements. The camera-based measurement technology precisely inspects the low beam, high beam, and fog lamp and adjusts them semi-automatically in accordance with ECE and SAE standards.
Efficient conveyor technology connects all processes
As the central link between the individual process steps in final assembly, Dürr supplies the complete conveyor system for the plant. The car bodies and doors are transported through the various final assembly stations by more than 3 kilometers of conveyor technology, such as electric monorail systems, skillet platforms, and modular chain conveyors. The design is based on robust, low-maintenance, and durable components. The result is a conveying solution that combines high availability with cost-effectiveness and lays the foundation for a stable and efficiently synchronized final assembly process.
“Our fully automated final assembly system represents a significant advancement in automotive manufacturing, combining precision engineering with cutting-edge automation to deliver exceptional quality and efficiency,” says Andreas Hohmann, CEO at Dürr Italy and Vice President of NEXT.assembly.
