Better High-Volume Gasketing - Marysville Products uses Kern-Liebers manufacturing equipment to make air exhaust motor vehicle parts for passenger cabin - Brief Article

The situation: Marysville Products [Marysville, MI], a division of Blue Water Plastics, supplies air exhaust components for vehicles including the Jeep Grand Cherokee, Neon, LH series, and other products. This Firm is of ten incredibly busy, as in 24/7 operations. The air exhausters are used to vent the air displaced by airbag deployment and to contribute to cabin air.

The issue: Once the devices are molded, a Foam-in-place gasketing operation is performed. George Benjamin, general manager For the Facility, determined that a new system was needed to maintain the production volumes that his customers required. Demand can be on the order of 10 million units/year. So a search, including trips both in the U.S. and Germany, was conducted.

The Solution: A system from Kern-Liebers, USA [Holland, OH], was selected. Among its elements are robot axes, monitoring equipment, a flushing unit, mixing and dispensing head, and a specialized nucleation, or dispersion, system. This last-named provides a fine cell-foam structure as it mixes air and the polyurethane material with a special agitator with air dispersion. Benjamin says,. "We decided to go from a corona treatment to a flame treatment for adhesion, and the robotically controlled Foam-in-place gasketing system of Kern-Liebers Fits the bill." He also notes, "We went from a flat flange to a tough design with a specified insertion force with very tight tolerancing." Which necessitates accurate positioning from the gasketing equipment. Once the gasket is in place, the system conveys the exhausters to a 22-ft oven with infrared heat for curing the material.