Case Study: Emergency Rescue Equipment Manufacturer

Company Background:

An established manufacturer, the customer in this emergency rescues.

Challenge:

The old method of manufacturing that the customer was using was done by a combination of lathes and vertical machining centers. Each of these machines had tooling specific to the operation being performed on the parts. The resultant stack up of tolerances made making the parts to the required tolerance parameters very difficult to accomplish, becoming extremely tedious operations.

Assessment:

The customer wanted to incorporate a mill turn lathe with robot load and unload into their manufacturing plan. They believed that this would be very important to them now and in the future as they continue to take advantage of modern technology to reduce costs and increase productivity. The goal of the customer was to not only increase production, but also to learn more about automation and see if it would be useful in other parts of their facility.

Solution:

Utilizing a FANUC Robotics M-20iA six axis robot and controller, the automation cell designed by Acieta includes an outbound conveyor and a Mori Seiki NT 4300-1500SY machine designed for inbound. Able to incorporate a single part gripper or a Robotiq Hand Gripper to handle all 28 different parts, the robot unloads parts from the machine tool and places them in the 5’ long and 12” wide outbound conveyor.

End Result:

Now running the automation cell 24 hours a day, production has increased to three parts per hour, an increase from one part per hour previously.

Before:

  • Complex process
  • Monotonous for operators
  • One part per hour

After:

  • 24-hour automated production
  • Decreased cost
  • Three parts per hour

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