MACHINE TENDING CELLS
Safer, Faster, Smarter
Automating Your Machine Tending Cell is a No-Brainer
Loading and unloading a machine is boring, low-action work that can be hard on the human body.
In order to use your operators to the best of their ability while increasing throughput on your production line, invest in a machine-tending robot to do that work instead. You can easily more than double your throughput by implementing a machine tending system.
Challenges machine tending robots solve best involve:
Heavy and/or awkward parts
Long cycle times
Poor ergonomics
Complex processes
Inconsistencies and defects
THE RESULTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES
From 200 Heavy Tires a Day
To 500 Weightless Tires a Day
Struggling to find labor and could come up with a feasible solution for their unique machine-tending operations, Thombert was elated when Colewell had their new machine-tending system up and running within a week.
With labor shortages and shrinking profit margins, you can’t afford not to automate volume machine-tending work these days.
But don’t take our word for it, take it from Scott Gemmill, Project Engineer at Thombert.
“[Colewell has] excellent knowledge in automation, and from start to finish. What they say the cell’s going to do, it’ll work.”
Machine-Tending Robotic Work Cells Help Humans Achieve the Impossible
Machine tending is one of the simplest operations to automate. Not only does it make life a million times easier and safer for your operations team, but it also improves production quality and repeatability.
Using a robotic arm and a machine vision system, specific workpieces can be recognized and identified, as well as their location and orientation. When the vision system finds the part, it tells the robot how to retrieve it and place it into the machine.
Once complete, the machine tending cells can perform off-machine operations such as blowing off parts, deburring, and inspection. The extra operations can be performed at other stations within reach of the arm or directly on the machine tending system.
The robot can also re-grip the part and place it into a fixture so that subsequent operations can be performed. As soon as the part is complete, it can run through off-machine processes again or be placed on an outfeed conveyor or into a container.
To allow you to handle multiple parts in the same family, we use something called parametric programming. Machine programming using this style allows part features to be changed without reprogramming the machine completely.
We make it easy for you to add new workpieces through the touchscreen on the system. It’s as simple as duplicating and modifying existing machine recipes for similar parts. Although, if the parts are not in the same family, you may need specialized equipment such as tool-changers or servo-grippers to run new parts through the same system.
Ready for Safer, Faster, Smarter Operations?
Partner with your friendly neighborhood integrator. We’re eager to help you achieve all three.