Grinding Technology
years, we delivered a single automation project and that was for steering racks. However, in the last year we’ve booked five automated projects. There has been a resurgence in US manufacturing, and all the alarm about there being a labor shortage appears to have some validity. Companies are look- ing to automate now to fill the labor gap, while in the past they would have relied on manual loading and unloading. For example, three of the five projects we’ve automated in the last year include a steering rack project, a hydraulic pump project and a plastic injection molding project,” said Marchand.
Automate to Improve Productivity
“Manufacturers are turning to automation as the only op- tion to get productivity up and maintain it, to have machines running consistently, and to have one person run three, four and five machines as a machine tender,” said Marchand. “They can keep the robot loaded with queues of parts so that the robot can feed the machine at a steady pace. I’d add
Low-cost basic approach to automating the grinding process is specifically designed to allow the machine to run unmanned for one to two hours. Pinion shafts ride on support prisms, post grinding; conveyor belt provides infeed mechanism.
further that with our machines automation is almost exclu- sively via multiaxis robots, because most of our parts are odd- shaped, may be imbalanced and they’re usually produced in low volume.”
Just about everything UGT has automated requires a multiaxis robotic system, and the automation is always sourced to a dedicated automation supplier. “We use only Matrix Design Inc. [Elgin, IL] as an integrator, and the reason for this is simple: the president, Ryan Berman, and founders of the com- pany came from the grinding industry, so they know grinding machines and the grinding process,” said Marchand. “Matrix specializes in one-of-a-kind jobs, and their business model fits very nicely into our business model of customized solutions. These guys know grinding; they speak the language, and finding an automation supplier with that kind of process knowledge is crucial to successfully automating what we do,” said Marchand.
“I’d like to think there’s a pattern in automating profile/creep-feed machines. The economics are there and it’s easier to automate profile machines, primarily Blohms and Mägerles, because today’s robots are easier to use and easy to
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ManufacturingEngineeringMedia.com | June 2013
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