CHALLENGE
The servicing of industrial machines consists of providing support by automating the most repetitive and lowest-value parts of the process, such as loading and/or unloading a specific machine or process with components or materials.
Today, most companies carry out these operations with their own staff.
TASK
A well-known manufacturer and supplier of customised glasses and goblets by screen printing and laser engraving required an automated solution to handle CO2 laser marking, which is currently done completely manually with a daily production of around 24000 pieces on 5 workstations.
The current workflow involves the operator assigning the laser one cup at a time by placing it on a template under the source and taking it from a box or pallet. The marking finishes in 5-6 seconds and then the operator places the glass back into the boxes or pallets.
SOLUTION
Given the requirements, we have configured a robot cell with the possibility of handling from both box and pallet (depalletising and palletising).
The anthropomorphic robot picks up the cup from the box or pallet, positions it in place for marking and places the piece in the unloading area (box or pallet).
A flexible solution that will allow rapid format changes without the need for operator intervention. The robot will completely replace the human in the marking process. Considering the wide range of formats, we decided to use specifically
artificial vision for the recognition of the grip position of the glass;
dual end effector gripper for optimal grip of the glass from outside and inside without the need for format change;
motorised conveyor sides and mobile pallet support for adjusting the height of the pallet to the optimal working height of the robot.
The use of robotic systems for laser marking concerns::
Quantitative aspect
increased productivity because the robot can work in an optimised manner faster and for more hours than an operator;
Qualitative aspect
objectively, the precision of a robot is higher than that of an operator and thus allows a considerable reduction in waste because there are no human errors;
Work aspect
the position of the laser focus and the entire picking and depositing flow will be handled automatically. The operator will no longer have to worry about tedious and dangerous handling tasks.
As a result of the tests carried out during the design phase, results were obtained in terms of increased productivity compared to the current one.
INCREASED productivity
the application of 2 robot arms per station will increase productivity by 64%. One operator will be able to easily manage two stations at the same time.
The precision of the robot will reduce the percentage of rejects and re-machining.
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