Electronics is increasingly becoming part of everyday life. To ensure that electronics in your vehicle, for example, operates flawlessly it is comprehensively tested using inspection technology provided by the Kufferath Group.
A successful test confirms: everything is working perfectly! This is our area of specialisation, but we are also always happy to tackle challenges from other sectors and look forward to receiving your request.
Here you will find some additional simple and interesting information on automotive inspection technology. Please click on the relevant link in the pop-up list for further information:
We are a medium-sized, international company with our headquarters in Moers, North Rhine-Westphalia, and have been a reliable and innovative company for our customers around the world since our
establishment in 1995. Tradition and innovation – two pillars of our corporate philosophy that have ensured constant growth as well as a global network.
Electronics is increasingly becoming part of everyday life. Our cars are a good example of this: electronic systems help us overcome everyday traffic situations and provide support by completing a range of tasks for us as well as providing increased safety. These days, controls don't just include the lighting, air-conditioning, locking system and instruments, the on-board electronics also extend to the control units for engine management, gears, ESP, ASR and ABS as well as the diagnostics system which reports faults and lets us know that it's time to check the car, as well as performing other functions.
If you think about it you can see that electronics are increasingly replacing the mechanical elements. These days you are more likely to come across a car mechatronics technician (a combination of the car mechanic, car electrician and automotive mechanic professions) rather than a car mechanic. By way of comparison: a VW Beetle from the 50's had a single cable harness with nine conductors and a total length of about four metres, while a modern midrange car (such as a 5 series BMW) has around four kilometres of cable with over 2,000 conductors as well as about 450 plugs.
Driving safety, emission characteristics and fuel consumption are only three of the reasons why your on-board technology is constantly communicating with the control units.
To ensure that your electronics function perfectly all components are comprehensively tested prior to installation. Whether a cable harness or small or large electronics components, everything needs to be tested prior to installation in order to ensure that everything functions flawlessly and, for example, to prevent unnecessary recalls by the manufacturer. Because, ultimately, all cable harnesses are 100% manual labour, so it's always possible that something can go wrong.
If we now consider the range of components in a cable harness of a midrange car it must be highlighted that the entire manually produced cable harness, with all its plugs, are tested by Kufferath Group test systems in a single test procedure. This ensures efficiency and cost-effectiveness. The Kufferath Group inspection technology allows car manufacturers to confirm that everything is functioning perfectly, or that errors have been ruthlessly detected by our inspection technology and the faulty test piece has been removed from circulation.
These inspections are naturally not only gaining importance in the automotive sector: cables and modules also have to operate flawlessly in mechanical engineering, plant engineering, medical technology and the aerospace industry. Together with our team of experienced and top-quality employees who operate in our network around the world we can also respond to every individual customer request and every requirement in these sectors.
Test panels and test benches form the basis of every test system: test modules, test point cards, cable testers, PCs, testing software and test benches are assembled to form a test unit.
The "foundation" of the test system, i.e. the test bench, may have a completely different design depending on the requirement and the setup of the workpiece to be tested. The size and shape of the test bench as well as its equipment depends on the relevant requirements.
Our test benches are designed to ensure that the test unit can be expanded or scaled-down as required, similar to the modular design principle. Our test benches and panels can also be used to expand existing systems or components produced by different manufacturers.
Our designs are based on the latest technical standards as well as ergonomic findings and focus on extensibility, precision and quality.
The test modules are the link between the test piece and the test system.
The basic design of the test benches and panels generally have three standard sizes (50x50 mm / 50x100 mm / 100x100 mm), but a customised adjustment to other formats is not an unusual or demanding challenge for the Kufferath Group.
Our test modules, which are perfectly adapted to the test object, allow for the following tests to be performed (including in parallel):
• correct function • correct position and connection
• correct plug assembly • tightness
• testing for defective connections • through connection
• use of the correct plug
(colour recognition and differentiation between similar plugs is possible)
The test piece is either removed automatically or at the touch of a button after a successful test. The test result is issued as a print-out (e.g. as a label) and stored.
The Kufferath Group quality standard ensures that the tests performed by our modules are just as reliable after a large number of tests, i.e. after inserting and removing the test plugs a large number of times, that they display no/negligible wear as well as outstanding durability and quality, while they are also user-friendly.
The company's complete HK UniTEst system is a genuine "all-round care-free package".
As the name suggests, it is designed for universal use. It adapts to the specific needs and requirements on a case-by-case basis in line with the modular design principle. The kicker: you book – and pay! – only for what you actually need, without having to buy unused hardware and software system components.
But there is nothing stopping further expansion: the possibilities for continuous development as part of future requirements is almost limitless. The intuitive and self-explanatory user interface means that no time-consuming and expensive training measures are required.
Our HK UniTEst components can also be combined with existing test systems provided by different manufacturers without any problems.
Our technicians provide support and service regardless of the project or test installation into which our HK UniTEst system is integrated.
Vision Systems, or optical inspection systems, are test units that compare target and actual values using high-precision camera technology to identify errors.
The optical inspection systems identify even the smallest errors, which the human eye could easily overlook. The documentation of the entire process ensures perfect quality based on extremely reliable controls.
| Typical test functions performed by our Vision Systems include: | ||
|---|---|---|
| • Assembly control (including controlling the correct equipment, e.g. of fuse boxes and relay boxes) | • Surface controls (including for splits and tears or the determin- ation of the distance between two features) | • Component position control (controlling presence and correct insertion depth) |
| • Geometric inspection | • Selective solder joint inspection | • Character recognition (reading tool) |
| • Controlling displays and LEDs | • Colour inspection (colour and pattern recognition, OCR) | • Barcode reading 1D (e.g. EAN codes), 2D (e.g. QR codes) |
| • Packaging control | • Cable control | • Paintwork control |
Vision Systems automate the quality assurance in receiving area, in manufacturing and/or the shipping area ensuring that this process is completed as quickly as possible and with the greatest amount of precision. Our Vision Systems ensure consistent quality assurance in the automotive industry and for their suppliers. The Kufferath Group performs visual inspections both during assembly and for the final inspection.
Our Vision Systems are "ready to use", which means that all the imaging and laser sensor system solutions have already been equipped with all the components and that they have been calibrated. The finished product from a single source: camera, light, software, computer, assembly and calibration.
Our range includes torque stations (bolting stations) as an innovative system for the ergonomic execution of manual activities such as the insertion of screw joints during assembly.
This allows the processes in assembly to be precisely coordinated and virtually rule out the possibility of any error sources. The actuating angle, positioning accuracy, torque and the position of components and connections are defined as a uniform standard. The mechanical quality control starts in the manufacturing area.
Bolting stations for semi-automatic and fully-automatic assembly can be designed for manual workplaces or for integration in automatic assembly lines depending on the place of application.
Our torque stations set the standard in ergonomics for the workforce, the quality of the end product, the variance of the tightening applications, torque and angle of rotation monitoring, error prevention and assembly support.
It removes the burden on employees while increasing productivity together with operating and process safety and quality assurance.
Special customised designs as well as the components required for assembly can be adapted to every application.
Take advantage of our experience and specialist knowledge.
All "system components", adapters, testers, software, assembly equipment and our support are available as both a package as well as individually.
Our modules grow and fit together to form your test unit as a complete system.
But you can also integrate our components into your existing systems. Our software and testers are designed to be used in existing test benches. An adaptation to your interfaces is no obstacle for us, rather the integration into your system is part of our service.