Body shop, paint shop, final assembly
Commissioning software for automotive shops where hundreds of robots have to be proven before job one.
Body shop, paint shop and final assembly are three different engineering problems delivered against one start-of-production date. Deskely holds every robot, cell, conveyor and utility in one register, with acceptance gated per zone so the ramp does not depend on a single spreadsheet.
- Shops
- Body, paint, assembly
- Density
- Hundreds of robot cells
- Gate
- Buy-off then job one
- Driver
- Fixed SOP date
Choose your project type
The problem
Three shops, one date, and buy-off lists in three formats.
Body shop integrators, the paint system supplier and the assembly conveyor contractor each run their own buy-off process, each with its own definition of complete.
The plant only cares about one thing: whether the zone can build a car to the weld-gun sequence and paint film-build spec it was designed for. Reconciling three buy-off formats — robot cell path validation from the body shop integrator, oven cure profile logs from the paint system supplier, torque and screwdriver data from assembly — into that answer is manual work performed weekly under pressure.
Deskely gives every shop the same record model and the same status vocabulary, so zone readiness is directly comparable.
Setting up the register
Cells, robots, tooling and conveyors roll up into zones that can be bought off.
Each robot cell holds its robots, grippers, weld guns or dispensers, fixtures, safety fencing and controls. Cells roll up to zones, zones to shops.
Layouts and equipment lists are parsed into the register so the buy-off list and the asset list are the same object.
Paint shop systems — pretreatment, e-coat, ovens, booths, air supply and abatement — sit in the same structure with their own utility dependencies.
Buy-off
Buy-off is a sequence, and every stage leaves evidence.
Mechanical buy-off, electrical buy-off, robot cell path and payload validation, safety-rated monitored stop and light curtain validation, dry cycle, wet test with actual parts and rate runs each have their own record set against the cell.
Punch is raised at the cell with photos and categorised by whether it blocks the next stage, which is what keeps the ramp sequence honest.
Zone readiness is visible live to the plant, the integrator and the launch team without a status meeting.
Start of production
Job one is a gate with a defined evidence set beneath it.
The decision to build saleable vehicles depends on safety validation, quality gates, utility availability and closed blocking punch across every zone in the chain.
Deskely enforces that from the records and shows exactly which cell is holding the gate, rather than presenting a percentage.
After launch, the same register carries the residual punch and the equipment history into plant maintenance.
Paint shop process proving
A weld cell either holds tolerance or it does not. A paint booth has to hold a film-build spec across a shift, in a live spray environment.
Body shop buy-off is mostly a pass/fail question decided at the fixture: does the geometry hold, does the weld schedule validate, does the robot cell clear its safety-rated monitored stop test. Paint shop acceptance is a different kind of proof entirely — pretreatment tank chemistry, e-coat film thickness, oven cure profile and booth airflow all have to be demonstrated as a process capable of running in spec across a full shift, not just on the panel that was measured during commissioning.
That is why paint systems fail differently to body shop cells: a cure oven can pass its FAT and still drift out of spec once real airflow patterns and part loading are established on the plant floor, and the failure only shows up as paint defects days later, well after the buy-off certificate was signed.
Deskely holds cure profile results, film-build measurements and booth airflow verification against the paint subsystem as its own evidence chain, separate from the body shop's mechanical and safety records but gated by the same job-one readiness logic, so a drifting cure oven is visible as an open item rather than discovered on the trim line.
What the launch readiness review reads
The records an automotive OEM's launch team checks before job-one is built on the line.
An automotive plant launch is measured against a fixed start-of-production date set years in advance, across body shop, paint and final assembly equipment that has to run in synchronised cycle time. The dossier keeps robot and conveyor commissioning records against the same tag the plant's maintenance system will use for the life of the line.
Robot cell FAT protocol and cycle time verification
Each robot cell meets its cycle time and process specification before shipment from the integrator
At the integrator's works, before shipment to site
Body shop weld and geometry validation record
Weld schedules and fixture geometry produce a body-in-white within the tolerance the design specifies
During process trials, ahead of pre-production builds
Paint shop environmental and process commissioning record
Booth airflow, temperature and coating process parameters meet the specification before vehicles are painted
Before first painted vehicle body enters the process
Safety circuit and light-curtain validation record
Robot cell guarding and interlocks stop within the required response time before personnel access is permitted
Before first powered operation of any robot cell
Line synchronisation and takt time verification
Body shop, paint and final assembly run to the same cycle time across the connected line
During line commissioning, ahead of pre-production trial builds
Job-one launch readiness sign-off
All stations have cleared commissioning and quality trial builds meet specification ahead of start of production
At the launch readiness gate, before job-one
How it runs
From steel in the body shop to job one.
Automotive launches are dense and date-driven. The structure has to survive hundreds of near-identical cells and several integrators.
- 01
Model shops, zones and cells
Body, paint and assembly broken into zones and cells with their robots, tooling and controls.
- 02
Template per cell type
One record set per weld cell, dispense cell, booth or conveyor section, instantiated across the shop.
- 03
Scope integrator access
Each integrator signs its own cells while the plant sees one consolidated view.
- 04
Run staged buy-off
Mechanical, electrical, safety, dry cycle and wet test recorded as stages against the cell.
- 05
Categorise punch by gate
Every item marked as blocking the next stage, blocking job one, or carried into ramp.
- 06
Gate start of production
Job one released only when every zone in the chain has its prerequisites signed.
FAQ
Questions about Automotive plants scopes.
Keep reading
Manufacturing commissioning
The full sector view: asset registers, FAT and SAT evidence, punch lists and line acceptance.
Read morePunch lists
Defects raised at the machine with photos, categorised by whether they block acceptance.
Read moreWalkdowns
Pre-SAT and pre-acceptance inspections run as structured walks that raise punch on the spot.
Read moreOther manufacturing project types: Greenfield plants and new factories, Production line installation and SAT, Food, beverage and hygienic process, Pharmaceutical and life sciences facilities, Battery gigafactories and cell plants, Semiconductor fabs and cleanroom fit-out, Warehouse automation and intralogistics, Pulp, paper, steel and heavy process, Brownfield upgrades and line relocations.
