AUTOMATION COBOT ADVANTAGES
undertake risk analyses, there are free
guidance notes and risk assessment
templates available online from Robotiq
(www.robotiq.com), for example.
Cobots are also easily moved around a
factory to be deployed where needed. Gray
again: “You can move it around the factory,
doing multiple tasks. So, it’s not just
designed for one speci c task. And because
industrial robots have to be xed, they need a
large amount of space, typically more than
one and a half times the reach to allow for a
safety guard around them. A cobot doesn’t
have guards around it; it doesn’t have a large
footprint. So, if you go to most injection
moulding shops, you’ll see that the machines
are squeezed quite tightly together, so there
isn’t a great deal of oor space to mount a
robot. And that’s one of the advantages that
we have, we’ve got a very, very small
footprint.”
On mobility, he instances one example in
an unnamed company that has its cobot
mounted on a moveable trolly and uses it to
load/unload a CNC machine during the day,
but wheels it away so that it can load/unload
a CMM during the night, because inspection
is a capacity choke point for the company.
Lastly in that ve-point list, as regards
payback, between nine and 12 months is the
claim, but to make adoption even easier,
there’s a leasing package offer (below).
More speci cally on the details of machine
tending now, and Universal Robots’ cobots
can be tted with either a single or double
gripper to handle parts. Parts can be picked
up from a a static position, such as from a
gravity feeder b a box in which parts are
located at different positions in a grid or c
respond to a vison system that locates parts
and sends coordinates to the cobot.
Where a grid system operates, there are
standard programming templates that
support both infeed and outfeed elements.
Stack and destack templates (e.g. press
brakes) are also available. And the cobot’s
force/torque sensor is now complemented by
a new programming command ‘Move Until’,
which allows for repeatable positioning with
respect to some datum or reference point.
As far as feeding devices go, these can be
very simple tables from which parts can be
picked and returned to the same or a
separate location, with devices from UK rm
www.mount-robotics.com given a namecheck.
Also mentioned is Vention, a company that
has a web portal that allows users to design
their cobot/loading/unloading system, with
Vention then producing the pro le material
elements that are then shipped for user
assembly. Another company is EasyRobotics
also of Odense, which has standard
Profeeder systems. But companies build
simple load/unload systems them
themselves, too, Gray advises.
Universal Robots’ website features a free
Application Builder that allows users to build
up and then visualise the system in
operation; it even allows
for the download of the
program to replicate the
task with the chosen six
elements (see main
image, p37), along with
‘How To’ cards to guide
various set-up elements.
Outside of the core
task, cobots can also
open and close machine
doors and blow swarf/
coolant of surfaces as
part of their duties.
Ancillary machining tasks
such as deburring are
within their scope, too.
The full online
presentation on machine
tending can be viewed at
www.is.gd/gamati.
UK user Etech
Engineering
Based in Great Harwood, Lancashire,
Etech Engineering is a designer and
manufacturer of bespoke machinery, as
well as offering a machining
subcontracting service taking in
aerospace and defence parts. Wanting to
run a part overnight, both availability and
cost of labour were issues. So, the
company installed a UR5 robot to serve a
Haas ST25 CNC lathe. The robot, which
has a double gripper, is mounted on a
rail attached to the machine, so it can be
moved out of the way for manual loading.
Etech designed its own table to hold
parts, with different xtures able to be
placed on the table for different parts.
These are picked up and presented to a
datum xture tted to the lathe exterior
prior to loading, with nished parts
unloaded into a bin. Says Gray: “What
they found is they got a 40% productivity
gain instantly, because they had a night
shift that basically ran for free. Whenever
they run those parts, they always run
them throughout the night. This frees up
the machine for use in the daytime. And
again, because they made most of the
system themselves, and it was relatively
low cost, they saw a return on
investment in less than 12 months.”
38 May/June 2020 | www.machinery.co.uk | MachineryMagazine | @MachineryTweets
/(www.robotiq.com)
/www.mount-robotics.com
/gamati
/www.machinery.co.uk