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Partnering December, 2017


How Universal Robots Doubled Production at Tegra Medical


By Brian Dillman, Area Sales Manager, Universal Robots USA, Inc.


as customers demanded lower prices, the medical device manufacturer’s profits were being steadily eroded. By deploying three collaborative


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robot arms from Universal Robots (UR) to tend manufacturing ma- chines, the company doubled its throughput, freed up 11 full-time po- sitions, and enabled it to both keep up with demand and lower costs. At Tegra’s main production fa-


cility in Franklin, Massachusetts, a robotic cell now works diligently right next to employees, helping pro- duce components for a meniscal re- pair device. “It’s unusual for us and for the in-


dustry to have a mixed-model cell like this feeding three different products si- multaneously in the same machining cycle,” says Hal Blenkhorn, director of engineering at Tegra Medical.


ig manufacturing changes have come to Tegra Medical. As production costs rose even


The robot is a UR10 from Uni-


versal Robots. With a reach of 4.3 ft. (1.3m), it picks up blanks from three different hoppers. Two of them are fed into grinders, while the third goes to a lathe. According to Paul Quitzau, senior engineering manag- er at Tegra, setting up the machining cycle is all about timing. “The UR10 starts with the slow-


est cycle first, then goes on to the next. It’s like popping bread in the toaster and making your eggs in the interim, then having everything fin- ish at the same time,” says Quitzau. Not only is the mixed-model cell


a rare sight in the industry, the fact that the robot can operate with no safety guarding next to employees is a radical break from conventional in- dustrial robots.


Built-in Safety The UR robots have a built-in


safety system that stops operation au-


tomatically if it encounters objects or people in its path. This feature en- ables humans and robots to work side- by-side, without the fencing usually required with industrial robots. As an extra safety precaution, Tegra in- stalled safety mats. Once an employee steps onto the mat and into the cell, the robot stops. The robot then contin- ues operation when the operator steps off the mat and hits a prompt. “This setup allows our operators


to be in the work envelope — and not every interaction requires the robot to stop. When the robot drops pieces onto the output conveyor, our operators can go and access the conveyor from the other side to remove them,” explains Quitzau. The types of activities Tegra automated first were high-volume, repetitive processes.


No Lost Jobs “When you mention robots, peo-


ple think they might lose their jobs. In 2014, our CEO said that our facil- ity was going to become the robotics center of excellence for the Tegra Medical platform, but that nobody was going to lose their job to a robot,” says Blenkhorn. Instead, Tegra has given the operators other jobs to keep up with company growth. Tegra achieved the one mil-


THE ENABLING TECHNOLOGY FOR INDUSTRY 4.0


lionth part out of its first robotic cell in less than a year. “The accuracy and repeatability over time was a big concern for us. We were apprehen- sive about whether we could put the robot through this kind of duty cycle in a high-volume cell and get year- after-year repeatability. We spot check every few months to make sure that the axes are still performing as well as they were a year ago,” says Blenkhorn. Quitzau recalls when Tegra


brought its first robotic cell online. “We maintained the manual cell next to it at first. Standing back and watch ing the two operations, you re- ally appreciate the repetitive motion of the robot. It never misses a beat while the human operator has to work very hard to keep up, tending two machines, taking a break, talk- ing with coworkers, spending time getting a quality check. Later on in the day, the same operator gets fa- tigued, takes a little bit more time between parts, while the robot never stops. We turned the manual process off and never looked back.”


Straightforward Programming Quitzau programmed Tegra’s


cogiscan.com


three robotic cells himself, a process he found to be very straightforward. The robot comes with a touchscreen pendant, which enables program-


ming. The robot arm can be directed through arrow keys onscreen, or by grabbing the arm and “teaching” it the necessary motions between way- points. “The screens are laid out well


and the commands are self-intuitive. I pieced together the entire applica-


As Tegra abandoned the


manual parts handling, the company also improved its product quality. “You get more consistency because


you don’t have people feed- ing parts differently. Now, we get only a few rejects during the day.”


tion without much trouble — and I’m not a programmer, I’m a mechanical person,” says Quitzau. As Tegra abandoned the manual


parts handling, the company also im- proved its product quality. “You get more consistency because you don’t have people feeding parts differently. Now, we get only a few rejects during the day. Before, we had considerably more than that,” says Tegra technical lead Dick Guilbert. Another benefit Quitzau stress-


es is the robots’ modular design. Spare parts are held at the distribu- tor’s facility and at a local UR office that can ship parts overnight if need be. Tegra recently purchased its fourth UR robot, another UR10 which will be loading parts in and out of a laser marking system. “The large reach of the UR10


gives us the ability to run multiple ma- chines, having more parts manufac- tured in a given cell,” says Quitzau. He adds that the UR robots can also be used to ensure process stability. Ro- bots can perform manual cleaning tasks where parts are loaded in and out of cleaning and rinsing tanks. Another application is in wet pro-


cessing. The robots can move chemi- cals through a process that human em- ployees have to shield themselves from with smocks, gloves and face masks. “On average, we’re seeing a


three- to six-month ROI with these cells. Typically, when we go into proj- ects, we anticipate a one-and-a-half to two-year ROI,” says Blenkhorn. With steady hands and steady financial re- turns, UR’s robots are pushing the


pace of medical device production. Contact: Universal Robots USA,


Inc, 101 Pacifica, Suite 350, Irvine, CA 92618 % 949-236-6082 E-mail: ur.na@universal-robots.com Web: www.universal-robots.com r


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