automation | Update Rethinking mouldshop automation
US-based Rethink Robotics has secured a number of orders from plastics moulding companies in North America for its Baxter robot, a twin-arm articulated automation product that mimics the way human operators work. Custom moulder
Crescent Industries is one of the latest to adopt the Baxter technology, using it to load and unload injection machinery at its plant at New Freedonia in Pennsylvania. “As a custom manufacturer, we’re con- stantly switching between parts and products and have traditionally been unable to automate our injection presses for that reason,” says Shawn Hedrick, process engineer at Crescent Industries.
With 75% of Crescent
Industries’ products used in the medical device industry, moulding precision and repeatability are key criteria for the company. The Baxter robot is employed
alongside human operators to automate
feeding and unloading of the machine, ensuring minimal interruption of the moulding cycle.
“Operating on a 30-second cycle, Baxter will soon be deployed
to handle a variety of parts and improve consistency, ensuring that we meet our high repeatability standards,” says Hedrick.
Rethink Robotics’ technol- ogy is also being used at Koller-Craft Plastic products in its custom moulding operation at Fenton in Missouri, where a Baxter robot is being used to package parts into tote bins. The task involves sorting and placing parts produced from four-cavity tooling on a 30s cycle. “The flexibility Baxter has provided allows us to better
assign our employees to positions where they are needed, improving our manufacturing processes and production significantly,” says Mike Ewing, operations manager at Koller-Craft’s Fenton plant.
Rethink says the ability of
the Baxter robot to mimic and automate human handling is a key benefit in custom moulding operations, which frequently use a great deal of manual labour. “Custom manufacturers often struggle to implement effective automation, as changes in parts, demand and product specs create problems for traditional robots designed for single-task installations,” says Jim Lawton, chief product and marketing officer at Rethink Robotics.
Other claimed benefits for
the Baxter robot include built-in force-detection for applications requiring “feel” feedback. ❙
www.rethinkrobotics.com
SEB takes tandem robot approach
Appliance maker SEB Group has adopted a tandem robot design from Wittmann to automate multi-component production of steam iron water reservoirs and tanks at its plant at St Jean de Bournay in France, achieving a significant saving in cycle time. The tanks are produced in three
materials using an overmoulding technique in a three-component rotary mould. SEB previously used a single robot with a picker arm to complete the two required automation tasks sequentially. It placed the two tank halves in the mould ready for overmould-
38 INJECTION WORLD | July/August 2015
ing and removed the finished overmould tank and placed it at a testing station. However, increasing demand required a faster solution, according to automation supplier Wittmann. Space around the mould did not allow
two individual robots to be used so the company opted for a tandem design based on Wittmann’s W832 robot, allowing the two tasks to be completed simultaneously. According to Wittmann, the tandem solution met SEB’s required cycle time and results in a near zero reject rate. SEB has since installed a second tandem robot on another production cell at the St Jean de Bournay site, where it operates 53 moulding machines ranging from 22 to 8,000 tonnes. The company currently uses 45 linear and 16 six-axis articulated robots at the plant. ❙
www.wittmann-group.com
www.injectionworld.com
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