Machine tools are precise, reliable and hard-working... as long as they have parts to produce. They are fed with blank parts and unloaded with finish parts. Because they are expensive, it is ideal to have their spindles creating parts as many hours as possible in a day. One option to get more profit out of your machine tool is to use robots to feed them. Watch the video below demonstrating a standard cell with a machine tool example offered by Ellison Technologies.
Integration is not an easy task, but the idea is straightforward:
- Use trays as buffers to stock blanks and have operators fill trays so the machine always has work in advance.
- Have a robot equipped with grippers and vision to feed the machine tool.
- And, in some cases, the robot can also unload the machine of its finished part.
One challenge of this kind of cell is the variety of parts that the robot may handle. If you invest in robotic equipment, you obviously want it to adapt to your different family of parts. In that context, designing custom gripper fingers might take a lot of time, resources and trial and error, which can decrease the potential for ROI. Another option is to utilize a robot with a standard industrial dexterous gripper such as Robotiq's Adaptive Gripper to feed your machine tool. Send us your part CADs and we will do a FREE feasability evaluation.
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