Part of a company’s manufacturing process had been very time consuming for their team of highly skilled engineers. The Head of Engineering and Manufacturing got in touch with Absolute Robotics to see if we could free up time for their engineers and increase production. To stay competitive within the market, manual operation was no longer a viable solution for this specific task.  So, Absolute Robotics took on the challenge.

The process involves using various instruments to laser etch, read 2D barcodes and take measurements. Part thickness is measured to 100nm and other specific dimensions are checked to validate parts before they are built. Running one batch of parts involves multiple measurements on 200 specimens – each specimen takes their engineers an average of two and a half minutes to complete, so that’s an 8 hour shift to produce a single batch. We cut that down to 1 hour 38 seconds, with no engineers needed once the new parts are loaded. This frees up time for their team to focus on higher skilled tasks that needed human interaction.

To deliver this system Absolute Robotics designed bespoke end-of-arm tooling to pick and place the specimens.  We also built a bespoke bench to house the high-end measuring equipment. The TM5 robot communicates with each piece of equipment to take readings and stores all the information in a folder shared across the customer network.

The company have now made their initial steps into automation and they have a flexible system that they can run at all hours to meet production demands. More importantly, invaluable time has been freed up for their engineers to concentrate on other aspects of production.