The former line without carton packaging requires a relatively large amount of space and is getting on in years.
It had integrated an additional process (turning), which increased the cycle time of the line and is no longer needed with a new product development.
The old system also packed the fittings in bags and was based on an outdated flexible feeding concept.



Starting point

The process sequence for the 23 different fitting types is as follows:
First, the 6-axis robot picks up the individual fitting from the flexibowl. The position coordinates of the fitting are detected beforehand via a vision unit.  The 6-axis robot places the fittings on one of four buffer grippers.
The buffer grippers are also used as a transfer station for the scara robot. The Scara robot feeds the fittings to at least one of three different stations for mounting the O-ring and the nut. The nuts are fitted with a cover label beforehand. A vision control checks whether the O-rings have been applied correctly and whether the nut has been screwed on correctly.
If the checks are successful, the Scara robot transfers the fittings to another handling unit. The purpose of this insertion handling is to place the individual fittings in cardboard boxes with a low drop height.
The cardboard boxes are erected fully automatically beforehand and presented to the insertion handling system. Once the carton boxes have been filled with the recipe-dependent number of IO fittings, the carton boxes are labelled, closed fully automatically and palletised on a grid pallet.
Special attention was paid to keeping the changeover time as short as possible. Accordingly, the robots are equipped with an automatic gripper changing system, which automatically picks up a new gripper from the gripper station when the type is changed. In addition, three different independent mother stations are installed, so that the changeover effort is completely eliminated.


Solution

The customer has the option of producing the individual fittings fully automatically from the bulk material and packing them in cardboard boxes. The packaging and palletising increases the degree of automation and reduces the manual logistics effort enormously.
Due to the robust design of the system, it can be operated extremely reliably. Already in the concept phase, special attention was paid to a fast and intuitive type change, so that the type can be changed within a very short time.


Advantages for the customer

Automatic assembly and testing machine for the plastics industry

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The purpose of the unit is to flexibly grab plastic fittings from the bulk material, fit them with O-rings and at least one nut. The assembled and tested fittings are placed directly into a cardboard box. The cardboard boxes are automatically erected beforehand and automatically closed and palletised after the correct number of fittings has been inserted.

System film

Feeding and assembly stations of the nuts.

Feeding and mounting nuts

Feeding O-rings

Flexible feeding of the 23 types (single-variety operation) by means of 6-axis robot, vision and flexibowl.

Flexibowl

The fittings are fitted with O-rings and nuts by a Scara robot and placed directly into cardboard boxes. 

Robot

The carton boxes are erected fully automatically. The changeover to another carton type is done automatically with 6 servo drives.

Packing

The presence check of the cover label and the screw check of the nut is carried out via a vision sensor. A total of 7 vision sensors are integrated in the system for quality control.

Automatic assembly and testing machine for plastic fittings

Automation

Unternehmen