| Industry: | Pharmaceutical |
Problem:
A major pharmaceutical
company needed a fully automated packaging to load tablets into cavity blister
packs. When packaged manually, unacceptably high scrap rates were common
because of the tablets' soft exterior finish.
Solution:
Engineers at Janssen-Ortho LLC (a Johnson & Johnson
Company pharmaceutical partner) in Gurabo, PR designed and built an automated
blister packaging system that solved the problem. They retrofitted a SCARA
robot equipped with an integrated vision system, special end of arm vacuum
tooling and a conveyor system to an existing packaging
machine.
Operators load trays of molded tablets on the conveyor. After
the tray is conveyed into the robot work envelope, the EPSON Vision Guide
system finds the location of each tablet and sends this information to the
robot. The EPSON EL650 robot equipped with a RC520 PC-based Controller moves
over the tray and picks up multiple tablets. One attribute of the end of arm
tooling is that each "finger" is independently activated, giving it the ability
to singulate tablets at pick up and set down. After picking up a load of
tablets, the robot rotates around to the set down location and places each
tablet into its individual blister cavity.
Benefits:
Previous Robot Usage
Experience:
This was the first robot
installation at this plant. Its success paved the way for more
applications.
Medical Device Test Automation
| Industry: | Medical |
Problem:
Inhalers are used to deliver
airborne pharmaceutical drugs. Because they contain valuable and sometimes
toxic ingredients, delivering accurate dosages is critical for patient care. As
a result pharmaceutical companies must do extensive testing on inhalers in
order to ensure that accurate dosing occurs when an inhaler is activated. When
testing is performed by operators, it is very time consuming and labor
intensive. Plus boredom induced inattention may lead to inaccurate recording of
test results.
Solution:
Using
an EPSON robot as the material handling device, Novi Systems Ltd., an English
automation company, developed a workcell that automatically test inhalers and
records the test results. Called ICTUS - the Automated Andersen, the cell
performs all the material handling, testing, result recording and equipment
clean-up previously done manually.
An operator loads a tray of inhalers
into the cell, pushes "Start" and walks away. The robot picks up the inhaler,
weighs it, prepares the dose (by shaking or other means according to the
requirements of the inhaler) and introduces the dose into the impactor for
firing. The final robotic handling operation is to move the inhaler back to the
weigh station so that the before and after weights can be compared in order to
determine the size of the delivered dose. With this data the pharmaceutical
company knows how much medicine each inhaler shot delivers to a patient.
Benefits:
DNA Dispensing of Genetic
Material
| Industry: | Biotechnology |
Problem:
Research Genetics Inc.
needed a fully automated system that would increase productivity, meet
extremely tight repeatability specifications and achieve high dot placement
density. In addition they required a system that could be programmed in C in
order to maintain conformity with other applications in their facility.
Solution:
Research Genetics Inc. built a
flexible, reliable workcell based on the Epson XM3000 Series Cartesian robot.
The XM3106B10LN was chosen because of its 15 micron repeatability, zero
settling time, large work envelope (1000mm x 600mm x 100mm) and VBGuide
software option that allowed Research Genetics Inc. to program in C. Parts are
fed into the robot work envelope on a custom feeder. Both the robot and the
feeder are controlled by an on-board PC which also provided the human-machine
interface.
Benefits:
| Industry: | Food Processing |
Problem:
A large English commercial
bakery decorates cakes with written messages iced on the top - a task generally
undertaken by skilled staff, trained to maintain a consistent high standard of
work.
During seasonal holiday periods consumer demand for these
decorated cakes increases fourfold. Training of additional staff to cope with
the expanded demand while still maintaining high levels of quality takes a
significant period of time and so volume planning is critical.
Solution:
System Devices, the EPSON Robots agent for the UK,
worked with Integrated Dispensing Systems to design and build a robotic cake
decorating cell that solved the problem. The cell used an EPSON SCARA robot
equipped with an IDS stainless steel 2200-245-Series KISS™ Tip Seal
Valve.
Cakes are fed to the EPSON robot via a conveyor. A simple optical
positioning system ensures that the cakes are presented to the robot in a
consistent position.
A CAD file of the decoration shape is downloaded
to the robot. Because individual cake heights may vary, a laser range finder
tells the robot the height of each cake as it enters the work cell.
The
robot moves over the top of the cake and writes the decorative inscription. The
dispensing valves heated tip prevents the icing from hardening inside the
valve. The cavity free tip seal prevents drips after the valve is closed.
Benefits:
Assembly of Fiber Optic Patch
Cords
| Industry: | Photonics |
| Integrator: | RTS Wright Industries |
| Nashville, TN |
Problem:
The manual assembly of fiber
optic pigtails requires operators to work with super small parts that have
sub-micron assembly tolerances. Improper component assembly causes misalignment
of the fiber cables which greatly reduces the output capacity of the finished
connectors. Traditional first pass yields from these manual assembly operations
are in the 5-10% range. The results are costly and time consuming rework or
scrapping components that may have values of thousands of
dollars.
Solution:
RTS
Wright Industries, a leading manufacturer of automation equipment, designed a
modular, semi-automatic system for the assembly of fiber optic pigtails.
Operators load pre-cut fiber cable on to a pallet. The next station
automatically strips, cleans and cuts the cable ends. At the third station the
cable is automatically fed into a connector ferrule and glued into place. An
EPSON EC350 SCARA robot is used for all the material handling operations in
station three. RTS Wright selected the EC350 because of its compact size and
tight repeatability specs. They also used the EPSON RC+ Controller's VB Guide
feature to help create a customized MMI. At the fourth and final station, the
completed assembly is sent to an IR Heat cure oven for final epoxy cure.
Benefits:
| Industry: | Injection Molding |
| Integrator: | Flexible Automation |
| Burton, MI |
Problem:
Customer builds electronic
components for the automotive industry. They had only 30 seconds to unload
molded circuit plates from a four cavity mold, inspect each cavity to ensure
that no debris was left behind, load a new insert into each cavity and inspect
each insert for proper location and orientation.
Solution:
Flexible Automation Inc., a manufacturer of automation
equipment located in Burton, MI, provided a robot-vision workcell that unloads
molded parts, inspects the parts and the cavities and loads new inserts. For
this time sensitive application, they used a high speed, EPSON TT8800 SCARA
Robot.
Flexible Automation attached a specially designed multi-headed
tool to the robot. The robot picks up all four molded circuit plates and the
runner simultaneously. After dropping the runner into a scrap chute, the robot
moves to a four station index table and loads the parts into holding fixtures
for inspection.
While these four molded parts are being inspected, the
robot picks up new mold inserts from a vibratory bowl feeder and loads them
into each cavity prior to molding. After loading the inserts, the robot's
integrated vision system verifies that each empty cavity is free of debris and
that the inserts are properly seated prior to molding.
Benefits:
| Industry: | Industrial Hardware |
Problem:
Customer needed to increase production from 2 to 6 pieces per minute.
Secondary objectives were to reduce changeover times and to have the ability to
handle a growing product mix. In addition there was a desire for a single,
programmable human-machine interface (HMI) capable of being used on all the
equipment.
Solution:
Two
EPSON TT8550 SCARA Robots were selected for the complex motion tasks such as
palletizing, screw driving and precision assembly; pneumatic devices were used
for simple pick and place operations. Prior experience with EPSON robots had
proven the reliability and robustness of the robots.
The EPSON
controllers were used to control all the components on the line including the
robots, conveyors, lift and locate stations, feeder bowls, escapements and the
pneumatic pick and place stations. Utilizing the robot controller allowed the
developers to utilize a single common architecture for all motion, I/O,
multi-tasking and safety circuitry for the entire line.
The EPSON
controller allowed the customer to program all cell controls from a single
environment, SPEL for Windows, greatly reducing the complexity and
implementation time for the line. SPEL for Windows' graphical user interface
and project management philosophy aided development by concurrently producing
documents as programs were developed. Using the VB Guide option and Active X
Controls, the user created a GUI using Visual Basic. The Active X Controls
allowed the user to integrate SPEL programming and maintenance screens as well
as discrete commands directly into the Visual Basic HMI.
Benefits:
Inspection/Packaging
Application
| Industry: | Automotive |
| Integrator: | Flexible Automation |
| Burton, MI |
Problem:
A Tier 1 automotive supplier
wanted to prevent the shipment of defective parts to their customers.
Traditional methods had operators inspecting parts; separating known good parts
from known defective parts.
This manual method made it possible for
operators to accidentally include defective parts in shipments to the customer.
Engineers concluded that an automated inspect and pack-out cell would
significantly reduce the possibility of defective connectors being shipped to
their customer.
Solution:
Flexible Automation, an automation equipment builder based in
Burton, MI, designed and built a workcell that automated the handling and
inspection routines. The workcell is equipped with an EPSON TT8800 robot and a
simple pneumatic gripper. The robot picks up a connector from an incoming
conveyor and loads it into a blanking press. After blanking, the part is
transferred to a station that performs an electrical test. Next the part is
moved to an automated vision inspection station that checks for flaws created
during the injection molding process.
After visual inspection the robot
makes the connector with a date and shift code for manufacturing
traceability.
The final step is packout. Good parts are loaded into a
shipping container and defective parts placed in reject chutes, segregated by
their test results. As a result of the significant benefits achieved from the
first workstation, the Tier 1 supplier ordered 5 more identical
stations.
Benefits:
