System Supplier/Integrator – SP Elements
Machine Loading. Our client is a long-established high-volume manufacturer of fitted furniture with the capacity to produce 300,000+ MDF/MFC laminated cabinets and worktops per year for new build and refurbishment projects.
The internal manufacturing process utilised traditional and CNC machines for cutting, drilling, and finishing.
Our client had been refining its process for years and invested heavily in equipment to manufacture boards and products. The SP Elements customer was a typical manufacturer who felt that automation was too expensive for them. They also required a solution that could be flexible and that their in-house team could configure and program.
The company requested a site visit to demo a cobot at their facility. A machine in the customer’s factory was selected as a test bed. Like most companies, when the cobot was initially brought out of the box to the untrained eye, it seemed a daunting prospect.
With a selection of OnRobot vacuum tools mounted onto the cobot, our engineer handed the control pendant to one of the customer’s operators and walked them through the process of programming. Within 30 minutes, the machine was being loaded with boards. This, of course, required refinement and further training, but very quickly, the customer saw the benefits.
The final solution proposed consisted of two UR10e’s, each fitted with area scanners to slow the cobots down when someone entered the area. OnRobot VGC10 vacuum heads were employed to lift the boards onto the machine, and sensors were fed back to the UR for sequencing purposes.
Training
The customer signed up for the Universal Robots Training Academy and installed the system with limited input from SP Elements.
