The Decorative Panels Group (DPG) is Britain’s largest paper foil laminator supplying laminated board and furniture panels throughout Europe.   Already using automated systems to cut panels to size, DPG had been investigating the use of robots for some time when two FANUC Robotics M710i robots became available to them through a company acquisition.

The robots are being used to load and unload Panels up to 3Mtrs in length into a Laminate edging machine.  Panels, which can weigh up to 18.2 Kg are picked up by a robot at the input end using a vacuum gripper and placed onto a feeder which automatically takes the panel into the edging machine.

A sensor in the gripper identifies stack height and the panel is delivered to within 5mm of the feeder table before being released.  The process is reversed at the output end of the process.

Before the robot system was installed the process was manually loaded and unloaded using three operators per shift.  The system is now operated by one operator who feeds stacks into and removes stacks from the system.

Malcolm Forward, Managing Director, Decorative Panels, explains, “Its traditional to use portal frame or gantry type handling units in our industry but the space taken up by them is very prohibitive.  The robots we’ve installed are ideal for confined space which in our case is at a premium.

“In addition by installing the robots we immediately remove the need for manual handling of heavy components and halve the labour requirement.”

As the robots were previously used for a different purpose, DPG were uncertain of their suitability.  FANUC Robotics UK were contacted to make a thorough assessment of the requirement and to refurbish the two FANUC Robotics M710 robots.

Malcolm Forward explains, “Having these robots available made this a fantastic opportunity for us to try out robots – we didn’t know if they were suitable and FANUC personnel were very good.  They carried out a site survey and undertook trials at their Coventry facility.  This gave us all the confidence we needed to proceed with FANUC Robotics to refurbish the robots and to engineer the system.

 “In summary the key benefits we have gained are saving space over traditional dedicated automated machines, saving labour costs and being able to adapt automation to an existing piece of machinery.  So successful has the project been that we are now looking at the installation of additional robots.” 

CCC, who exports around 70% of its output, provides its customers such as bakeware and automotive manufacturers, with pre-coated metal either coiled or cut to size.  The advanced coating process is highly efficient with very little waste and offers a superior higher performance coated surface compared to spray coated materials supplied from the Far East. 

The investment in a wider and faster coating line has provided extra capacity allowing the consolidation of its West Bromwich plant into the site in Wolverhampton.  Kevin Tranter, Managing Director of CCC, explains, “Locating all our operations on one site is already making a big difference – we’re more competitive partly because we’ve reduced the logistics involved in the operation and, increasingly important, we have managed to reduce our carbon footprint.  Now the new plant is fully commissioned we need additional people to join the business to help us meet the increased demand.

“The past twelve months have been difficult for all businesses but we have continued to invest, operate profitably and generate cash for our shareholder.  Now is the right time for us to capitalise on this investment, and process know-how to grow our business into the new decade”………..visit www.coopercoated.co.uk

Operating at its current location since 1987 Panasonic’s facility was originally long flow lines, but the move towards cell manufacture slowly saw increased levels of manual operation.   With the original automation proving to be unreliable this led to a general belief that machines break down and humans don’t.

Move on twenty years and the outlook has changed, Daniel Humphrey, PMUK’s Home Appliance Manufacturing General Manager, believes good well maintained machines are now highly reliable and relatively cheaper.  Describing the process, Daniel explains, “There are 8 manufacturing cells producing over 300 variants of microwave.  These were manually transported from each cell to a palletising area where manual operators used lifters to stack the ovens and then manually wrap them.  The problem with this process was that it involved 3 – 4 people collecting many variant products, in ten different sizes from several locations.”

Smurfit Kappa’s (SKMS) solution was to design and install a conveyor system to collect from each of the eight cells.  Merging into a single conveyor taking all ovens to a palletising area where first they are identified by a single bar code reader and then directed to one of eight holding conveyors.

When a holding area has sufficient ovens for completing a pallet the ovens travel a short distance to the palletising pick up location.  The system PLC provides palletising pattern and quantity details to the FANUC Robotics robot. 

SKMS developed a gripper to accommodate all variants of oven which weigh from 15Kgs to 35Kgs.  The Robot picks up two ovens at a time and places them in the correct pattern to optimise pallet size. The pallet patterns are optimised to suite Panasonic’s warehouse requirements. Average time to complete a pallet is 1 minute.

The SMKS supplied system includes automatic stretch wrapping of the stacked ovens to neatly wrap the ovens and secures the stack suitable for column stacking in the warehouse.

“We now have just one operator in the palletising area and there is no longer a lifting requirement.  The system has been designed to be straight-forward and it works effectively.  Overcoming any reliability concerns the system is proving to be highly reliable and requires no attention,” commented Daniel.

Aimed at assembly and packing operations the parallel link structure allows the compact M-3iA to be located safely in confined areas.  Its cylindrical work envelope, 0.5 Mtr deep by 1.350 Mtr diameter, is concentric to the robot mounting base making it straight-forward to position and guard relative to peripheral equipment.

Available in a 4 axes configuration as well as 6 axes, all joint motors are positioned well away from the wrist avoiding being exposed to high acceleration and, dependant on application, aggressive materials.   All joints and mated components are completely enclosed and sealed to IP67 rating – the wrist is suitable for working in a dust or oil mist environment.

Realising the importance of this high speed configuration for picking and packaging applications, FANUC Robotics has produced a Food and Pharmaceutical version.  The FANUC Robotics M-3iA Food robot has a white epoxy finish for harsh material protection which also allows the arm to be disinfected with acid and alkaline fluids – food grade grease completes the specification.

FANUC Robotics has developed a unique approach to applying a three axes wrist to a parallel link design to enable the wrist to accurately maintain positioning even during high- speed motion.  With wrist speeds of 4,000° per second for the 4 axes and 2,000° per second for the 6 axes version, the M-3ia has a repeatability of 0.1mm.

The 4 axes model M-3iA/6S has a hollow wrist for routing hoses through the centre of the gripper reducing interference, hose breakages and downtime while permitting very fast work piece rotations.

Applications requiring more complex positioning are suitable for the six axes M-3iA/6A with its ability to pick up components, assemble them at an angle and rotate them – effectively replicating a human operator but at far greater speed, with high repeatability over an indefinite sustained period.

The FANUC Robotics M-3iA is controlled by the intelligent R-30iA controller with integrated functions including iRVision, Robot Link and Collision protection.  All that the robot requires to benefit from iRVision is a camera and a cable to connect it to the controller – a housing is provided in the robot body to position a camera above the wrist of the  M-3iA.

Green Solutions supply the complete manufacturing system to businesses requiring either one way or multi transport pallet use for their product deliveries. As systems can be supplied anywhere in the world, sourcing a reliable handling solution for the moulding process is important as it forms the core of the process.

SAMEY EHF, an Icelandic automation business worked with Green Solutions to design the handling system. “Robots were the most cost effective solution for the process and provided a highly supportable almost ‘off the shelf’ answer to reliability and ease of operation,” commented Thorkell Jonsonn, Managing Director of Samey.

At the beginning of the process robot 1, a FANUC Robotics M-900iA, dips a mould into the paper slurry. After a short period of time the mould, weighing 250Kgs at this stage, is removed and a vacuum applied to the top surface of the pallet to remove water. 

After the first vacuum operation, the robot rotates the pallet and delivers it to a static vacuum device which extracts water from the other side of the mould. The pallet is then transferred to robot 2, a FANUC Robotics M-2000iB, which applies its vacuum gripper to the pallet while robot 1 ejects it from its gripper. When robot 2 signals it has made a vacuum, robot 1 departs the transfer area and continues with another dip operation.

Robot 2 at this point loads the pallet into one of six drying ovens. The FANUC Robotics controller manages the sequence for all six- ovens, including door operation and heat blow, allowing it to instruct the robot to unload the correct oven and place a finished pallet onto an output conveyor.

Thorkell Jonsonn concludes, “The FANUC robots provide an uncomplicated and reliable solution and in particular they are able to use their own controllers to manage the process. The totally automated process also supports the environmental aspect by requiring minimal space and if required ‘lights out’ operation.

See video at www.gspallets.com

Meeting the exacting standards of the oil sector with the highest quality equipment has provided exponential growth for COR over the past 16 years.  With network operations on four continents and 36 country locations it needed to provide a global web presence but with a local feel.

JOC developed a concept, based around a clear communications brief provided by COR, to allow each of the four Network Region offices to take ownership of their own web area.  The Content Managed System (CMS) site enables simple updating of text, images and equipment data by ‘non-web specialists’ allowing a local and fresh theme to welcome visitors to the site.

The new COR website is built to allow expansion, additional language options and compatibility with all web browsers and mobile phones.  The COR website can be viewed at www.correntals.com

Timloc, a member company of the Alumasc Group, manufactures a wide range of plastic building products for roof, wall and floor ventilation. “We operate in a competitive mature market which is compounded by the current economic conditions,” explains David Preston, Timloc’s Managing Director, “We have two clear strategies for the business – new product development for growth and cost base reduction wherever possible to maintain and increase margins.

“Labour is our biggest cost base and operating at 3 shifts over 5 days it is significant. As most of our labour is employed in packing large volumes of mouldings this operation became our target for automation.”

“Labour is our biggest cost base and operating at 3 shifts over 5 days it is significant

Already using linear axes robots on two injection moulding machines Timloc were aware of the limitations and capabilities of robots. The current robots were limited to removing mouldings and placing them onto a conveyor.

Hi-Tech Automation, a FANUC Robotics’ Strategic Partner, proposed a six axes robot approach for each unload and packing requirement. “We needed someone to take responsibility for the project and give us the confidence that they could do it – this was easier said than done as many potential solutions offered relied on design teams based overseas making one-to-one feedback harder.

Hi-Tech have the specialist plastics sector knowledge that is clearly ‘meat and drink’ to them and demonstrated clearly that they capitalised on the robots full functionality to maximise efficiency. An additional bonus for us was realising how affordable six axes robots had become.”

The five robot systems, comprising a FANUC Robotics ArcMate robot, an injection moulding machine and peripheral tooling for locating boxes and components, perform different operations but principally all systems are packaging products.

Complexity of task varies from assembly of two components to the handling of a long ‘floppy’ component. The six axes flexibility has allowed the robot in each case to replicate the human packers.

Telescopic Underfloor Ventilators are produced in a two part mould and are removed from the tool by the ArcMate robot. Both parts have to be assembled – one part slides into the other. To enable this Hi-Tech designed a fixture which controls the shape of the mating parts prior to the robot assembling them together.

On completion of assembly the robot places the finished component, in an interlocking pattern, into a pre-erected cardboard box. When the box is full it is automatically removed from the cell and a new empty box is conveyed into the cell for the process to continue.

The only human intervention required is to keep the robot systems loaded with boxes and to remove full boxes. This process also acts as a quality control as the operator tapes the box lid shut when it is taken away to the despatch area.

David Preston, continues, “The Telescopic Ventilator is an example of the confidence we needed to have in the system builder. This is a complex assembly task which needed a system to be designed and built to prove functionality – when Hi-Tech say they can make it happen it does.

Equally complex to handle and pack was a long comb moulding – a section of roof ventilation product – this previously proved to be difficult to handle manually as it has no rigidity. Proven plastics gripper design combined with the ArcMate robot’s dexterity has made this operation highly efficient.”

Timloc claims to have achieved its cost down objective and although limited by space is looking to expand. Not only are further six axes robots on the agenda at Timloc but their success has spread confidence Group wide.

JHS is strategically located in Grimsby to take fish heads, tails, fins, backbones and lugs from other fish processors in the area. What other processors classify as waste, or offal, has a very specific market in Nigeria where a fish flavoured stock is produced and added to a favourite stew delicacy.

Although the drying process gives the fish at least a twelve month life without refrigeration, the quality of the waste and it processing is important. Fresh waste is received and the fish parts are manually laid out in specific patterns onto 80cms x 80cms trays weighing up to 30Kgs when complete.

The trays travel by conveyor to a palletising area where a FANUC Robotics R2000iA picks one at a time and stacks them on top of each other by accurately positioning the tray legs. As the fish is raw at this stage, the robot has a gator to protect it from the large amounts of water in the area. Trays are stacked to 2Mtr height and are automatically conveyed out of the robot area when complete.

Olafur Einarsson, Operations Director, JHS Fish Products, comments, “It is unthinkable for us to consider any other way to handle the trays. At our old factory in Iceland the operation used to be manual and mechanical using dedicated automation – it was very unreliable, very noisy and shaky. Manual handling involved two people per tray and the need to bend below the knee and reach over the shoulder making it a tiring task.

“The problem was resolved by Samey EHF an Icelandic company and a Strategic Systems Partner of Fanuc Robotics UK. Samey were able to apply a great deal of experience applying automation into the fish industry to help us overcome our handling issues. ”

When the drying process is complete the fish have to be removed from the trays and packed into sacks. At this stage the second robot, another FANUC Robotics R2000iA, de-stacks the trays and empties the fish into a hopper.

Olaf explains, “This process is not so straight-forward as the drying process releases juices onto the trays and this makes the fish difficult to remove. Again robots have given us a smooth efficient process – the trays have about nine hundred holes moulded into them which we align, using the robot, with a vertically mounted bed of pins which go through the holes and push off the fish.

“Our previous manual and mechanical system caused a lot of damage to the pallets and the problem with manually carrying out this task is that its almost impossible to align the pins without causing damage. This system has been in operation now for three years and, other than lubrication, it has required no attention at all.”

JHS had no robotics skills within the company and employed one of the temporary contractors that had assisted Samey during the installation and commissioning period. “The system is straight-forward and operates efficiently – working with a robotics integrator that really knows the fish industry is important and gave us a lot of confidence.  We are now actively looking to employ robots wherever possible and the loading of raw fish to trays is just one consideration.”

With a focus primarily on the aerospace sector and a solid reputation for high quality products, Wide Range has supplier approvals in place with manufacturers including GE Aviation, Bombardier, BAE Systems and Airbus.  The company’s fabric reinforced airframe seals and variety of canopy and cockpit seal extrusions complement Garlock’s existing range of products used in the aerospace sector.

Wide Range employs 20 people at its Leicester factory with skills in moulding and fabricating an extensive range of materials including synthetic and natural rubber compounds, metal and composites.  Capabilities extend to producing extrusions, calendaring and incorporating textile reinforcement to mouldings.

Garlock already has a strong position in the aerospace sector supplying high quality metal seals and sealing systems particularly for high temperature precision applications such as turbines, hot ductwork and exhausts.  The acquisition brings the benefits of Garlock’s strong innovation, research and development to Wide Range’s customers to provide the assurance of long term support. 

Stuart Phythian, Managing Director of Garlock (Great Britain) Limited, commented, “Wide Range is well respected in this exacting market producing high integrity sealing products.  Its capabilities and industry knowledge supports our own focus on this important sector. 

“We further expect our combined customers to benefit from Garlock’s global expertise in sealing technology applications alongside Wide Range’s knowledge and awareness of its customers’ needs.  This is another step in Garlock’s vision to become the global leader in industrial sealing solutions.”