There is nothing easy about handling a car hood on an assembly line, especially for the human workers in the loop. So when Chrysler wanted to improve this aspect of their manufacturing process, the automaker faced a number of challenges.
Car hoods would arrive from the stamping supplier on a large steel rack-essentially two horizontal arms jutting out that held anywhere from 50 to 100 vertically stacked car hoods. A worker would take the hood off the rail and place it on a precision fixture, which allowed for exact identification of the hood's location-a key to completing further operations, such as undercoat application. The car panels were heavy, oily and sharp, making it difficult for the operators to handle manually. Unloading them involved repetitive motion, and risk of injury was high. Moreover, the racks on which the hoods hung tended to bend and warp over time, the result of repeatedly being loaded in and out of trucks via a forklift.