Johnson Controls Inc.'s North American Automotive Systems Group faced an unusual customer requirement.
The company manufactures vehicle headliners for multiple vehicles and automotive customers at its Holland, MI, plant. In most cases, Johnson Controls uses equipment such as snap gages to monitor the thickness of the headliners. Snap gages generally work well because automotive customers normally require thickness measurements only around the periphery of the headliners, says Doug Stewart, Johnson Controls gage buyer. In these cases, the edge of the headliner can be slipped between the gaging members of the snap gage, which contact both sides of the headliner to take the measurement.
When Johnson Controls won the job to supply headliners for General Motors Corp.'s 2002 Chevrolet Blazer and TrailBlazer sport utility vehicles, however, GM imposed a new measurement requirement. In order to ensure that the headliners would not cause interference with certain components in the roof areas of these vehicles, GM wanted Johnson Controls to measure thickness in the center of the headliners, Stewart says. "Because the distance to the area we had to measure was roughly 21¿feet inside the headliner, there was no way that we could do that with a snap gage," he relates.