Zhongli North America Forges Strong Bond with KUKA

As automotive suppliers expand production in North America, automation is becoming essential for meeting demands for precision, throughput, and repeatability. For Zhongli North America, Inc., the scale of production and precision required for automotive chassis components made welding automation a necessity. At its Shelby Township, Mich., plant, the Tier 1 manufacturer first implemented a KUKA-driven automated welding process for North American operations in 2023.

Manufacturing Cell for Automotive Control Arms

Zhongli needed to automate their MIG welding and material handling system to produce an automobile control arm. The control arms are built by welding three components with four welds. Four robotic welders operate between two fixtures and perform 16 welds simultaneously to form four control arms.

Welding with Robots

KR CYBERTECH nano ARC HW robots are tasked with the precision welding, providing extremely fast and precise continuous-path motion. The six-axis robot uses a hollow-wrist construction for reduced main axis motion with repeatability of 0.04 mm. The KR QUANTEC tackles the material handling duties within the cell, moving the components and fixtures with an accuracy of 0.06 mm. 

Intelligent Workflow

KUKA’s automated cell provided economic, logistical and safety solutions in addition to producing the desired manufacturing results. The KR QUANTEC robots eliminated the need for human material handlers to move parts and fixtures between stations. Operators within the cell would slow the process dramatically, require a larger cell footprint and pose inevitable safety issues caused by people moving in and about live robotic welders.

Intuitive Software

Zhongli uses KUKA.ArcTech, an intuitive modular welding software package that controls all essential welding tasks. The software allows operators to program and optimize weld parameters regardless of whether the power source is a MIG/MAG, TIG or plasma device. Overall cell development and material flow was developed using KUKA.Sim, allowing Zhongli engineers to optimize processes virtually outside the production environment. Digital cell development and simulation allowed Zhongli to refine its processes with minimal cost and effort, which is essential when bringing a complex application online.

Forging a Partnership

“KUKA has performed very well,” said Kyle Fleeger, Zhongli manufacturing and maintenance engineer, who has been actively testing and tweaking the cell since it went into operation. “We’ve done many trials on gas types, wire types, different diameters and thicknesses, and we’ve been able to make these changes the same day. KUKA has been very incorporative of the different styles and trials that we try to achieve a better product.”

Support and responsiveness was instrumental in commissioning the cell quickly and getting parts to customers.

“One of the issues we originally had was customer timing, and that was a huge benefit that KUKA gave us,” said Anthony Valitutti, Zhongli Director of Operations. “KUKA had a much shorter lead time for the robots than anyone else we could have potentially looked at.”

“Additionally, we had a lot of the typical issues you encounter when bringing a system like this online, but we were able to get through them quicker than we probably would have with any other company,” Valitutti said.

Providing a First-Class Product

From a shop floor view, Fleeger said KUKA’s precision, reliability and overall high quality provide a solid manufacturing base to produce a first-class product.  


“This automation allows us to achieve the critical characteristics in our products that our customers require,” Fleeger said. “Even with its complexity, KUKA automation brings a certain simplicity. It allows you to understand how it’s controlled and how to modify it to incorporate what you need and want to do to make a better product.”

Just the Beginning

As far as Valitutti is concerned, the Shelby Township manufacturing plant’s welding cells are just the beginning of the company’s future automation strategies.

“We’ve started discussions about automating some of our very manual processes, and we have high hopes of automating a lot of what we do here,” Valitutti said. “KUKA has been a great partner through this process, and we’re looking forward to continuing that relationship.”



Evandro Maia is Key Technology Manager for KUKA's Tier 1/Metals team. In his 15 years with KUKA, Maia has focused on joining technologies, specifically arc welding processes. He has been involved with everything from pre- and post-sales support, trade shows, onsite commissioning, programming, and training of KUKA's technology packages, and supporting the joining tech center and customers.