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Robotised Island Restoration with FANUC Robots

Robotic assistance

SECTOR:

Metalworking

Location:

Massa Carrara, Italia

CUSTOMER

CMO , a leading company in the field of hydraulic equipment, known for its reliability among the world's most prestigious car repairers and original equipment manufacturers.

REQUIREMENT

A robot cell installed by a third-party integrator that was not working and did not meet CMO's production requirements.

OBJECTIVES

  • Restore the robotic cell to optimise production.

CMO , one of the leading companies in the field of hydraulic equipment, decided to integrate a robot cell into its machine park to increase market competitiveness and improve production efficiency. However, the island installed by a third-party integrator was not working properly, presenting significant malfunctions.

The cell, which was installed three years ago, has never been able to function in unmanned mode.

It consists of the following elements:

  • a robot on a pedestal;
  • a CNC machine tool;
  • rack magazine installed on a rotary table for loading blanks in masked time
  • Retraining station for correct workpiece pick-up.
  • Workpiece washing station: workpiece washing after machining to remove impurities left over from machining.

After a discussion with the customer, it was decided to take action on the problems highlighted without redesigning the island due to the costly investment.

Identified challenges:

During the first meeting with the customer, our technical team conducted an in-depth analysis and identified two main obstacles to the operation of the island:

  1. Robot gripper : unsuitable set-up for the working environment
  2. Parts Warehouse

Solutions Proposed and Implemented

Robot gripper

The Schunk gripper set-up installed on the robot wrist was not suitable for the working environment, as the wiring of the sensors on board the gripper did not have sufficient IP insulation. The Schunk gripper installed on the robot was not working properly, not sending open/closed gripper feedback signals, stopping the robot cycle

Solution

Perform a new gripper set-up in-house, using material suitable for the working environment

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Existing situation

Overhauled gripper

Overhauled gripper

IMG-20231030-WA0023
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Parts Warehouse

Parts Warehouse

Issue: the magazine not suitable for all workpiece geometries in the plant. The robot was colliding when taking and unloading parts from the magazine. In addition, there were problems with the positioning of the aluminium blocks, causing errors in the machining dimensions.

Solution

Inserted flat springs within each warehouse space to ensure correct positioning of each type of code being processed. This improved the precise allocation of both blanks and machined parts.

We are extremely satisfied with the work done by RoboFeed on the restoration of our robot island. Their ability to quickly analyse the problems and propose effective solutions demonstrated a very high level of technical expertise. Thanks to their intervention, we were able to resolve malfunctions without the need to redesign the entire island, thereby optimising our production. The Robo Feed team showed great professionalism and precision, significantly improving the efficiency of our production process. We highly recommend Robo Feed for their reliability and expertise in the industry.

M.M. - Production manager

Final Result

Thanks to the implemented solutions, the robot cell is now working properly again, allowing CMO to make full use of its investment without having to rebuild the entire cell. Our intervention enabled the customer to improve production efficiency by solving the technical problems that were preventing the robot cell from working properly.