GM Teams Up With 3M For Robotic Paint Fixing System In The Assembly Line

3M Co MMM has partnered with General Motors Co GM to introduce an advancement in automotive production: automated paint repair on an active assembly line.

This partnership integrates 3 M’s Finesse-it Robotic Paint Repair System, combining robotics, process modeling, and abrasive technology to identify and fix paint defects during the manufacturing process.

The system has been deployed at GM’s Spring Hill plant in Tennessee, which produces Cadillac SUVs, with plans for potential expansion to other locations.

3 M’s robotic system tackles a widespread issue in the automotive sector: correcting paint imperfections during production.

“At GM, many of our processes are already automated and this is a very complicated area to think about automating,” said GM’s Director of Paint Polymers and Additive Manufacturing, Ryan Odegaard.

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“If you have a customer-facing product, you have to make sure that that paint finish is perfect because it’s the first thing you see when you go into a dealership.”

When repairs are done by hand, they can be labor-intensive and unpredictable. The Finesse-it system, in contrast, improves both speed and accuracy.

It employs an advanced vision system to inspect the vehicle for surface flaws, gathering data to develop the best repair strategy.

“We are streaming information to that robot approximately every 10 milliseconds,” said Marcus Pelletier, Global R&D Director of Systems Development at 3M

“Because we’re doing it in real-time, if we detect something when the tool touches the car … we can modify our trajectories dynamically on the fly so that we end in the right spot every time.”

Price Action: MMM shares are trading higher by 0.16% at $149.22 at the last check Wednesday.

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