MacDonald Humfrey
Automation (MHA) and
sister company Exmac
Automation have helped
Ricardo, in West Sussex,
create a state-of-the-art
assembly facility to build
high-performance engines.

Providing a near
cleanroom production
environment, the facility has
the capacity to produce 4000
engines annually across two
daily shifts. Its core is a 10-
station vertical conveyor
mini-line supported by
incoming materials
inspection and line-side
component delivery. Each
station has a MacDonald
Humfrey HMI, providing
guidance to each operator on
the sequence of operations
required at each stage of
assembly to ensure ‘No Fault
Forward’ assembly. Tools at
each station are instrumented
to provide data directly into a
central warranty database for
each engine, providing
finished product traceability.

Each line station is interlocked
via its HMI to ensure
that all operations and checks
have been completed and
recorded before the line can
be indexed and the engine
moved to the next station.