Within the medical and pharmaceutical world, testing for conditions such as bacterial infections, viruses and other conditions often involves a test solution and swab kit. SP Automation & Robotics was chosen to design and develop a complete assembly line to manufacture such a test device. Although it has a long history of designing and developing medical device assembly machines, this particular device had a few challenging components and processes that had to be overcome.
The challenge was to design, develop and build a complete line to assemble the device. The device required assembly and heat staking of foil materials, filling of test liquids, and dipping of components in a chemical solution before they were all assembled.
At over 12m long, the final assembly solution comprised three modules, each carrying out the assembly and testing of one of 3 sub-assemblies. Module #1 assembled the lower part of the device, which included auto-feeding of and foiling of a plastic bung, dispensing of a reagent into a vial and then the assembly of the vial and bung and then transferring to a feed system to be fed to Module #3.
Module #2 assembled a handle and swab-type device with two variants. Both components were automatically fed into the machine using bowls and step feeders. The two products had vision inspection tests carried out before being assembled. A final Pull test was carried out to ensure the assembly was correctly assembled and then offloaded onto an output conveyor, which fed into module #3.
Module #3 was fed with sub-assembled devices from modules #1 & #2. The main body of the assembly was also fed into the machine. The swab/handle assembly was located on a dial plate and lowered into a chemical solution; on exit, it was then assembled into the main body. The sub-assembly from module #1 was then loaded into the dial plate. Tooling was then used to push the three sub-assemblies together before being unloaded to an output conveyor.
