An “Industrie Technisch Management Award” in the category Logistics, was granted to Quadrant Creative Moulding & Systems from Tielt, for the universal packaging unit, based on robot technology, and constructed by Vaskon. The same machine won an Innovation Award on the TechniShow exhibition in Holland (2010)
Robot stacks products in boxes.
Small series and an extensive range of products make innovative subcontractors switch to flexible automation.
The products at Quadrant CMS are coming out of an injection machine onto a transport conveyor in a random manner. In order to stack them appropriately in boxes, a robot cell was developed by Vaskon according to the specifications of Quadrant. This machine, as well as the complete peripheral equipment, is built on one single frame, which allows the end-user to move the robot cell very easily next to another injection machine, depending on the needs.
An advanced camera system detects the position as well as the orientation of the products on theconveyor, in order to enable the robot gripper to pick them up.
At the same time, the camera can perform a quality control and sort different kind of products (eg left hand products & right hand products; these can be stacked in different boxes).
The machine has a warehouse with empty boxes and a warehouse with filled boxes, which allow the machine to work autonomically during several hours.
To switch to another product, only the robot gripper needs to be changed and a new robot program has to be loaded. The unit can easily be adapted to varying dimensions of the box.
The universal packaging unit enables the subcontractor to reach a higher level of automation, resulting in a competitive advantage in a very competitive sector.
The high flexibility of the unit, meaning that it can be placed anywhere, is not the only advantage. It also means that the production processes don’t have to be adapted.
Eliminating manual labour not only realizes cost savings, but also results in supplementary advantages for hygienic applications and for handling products on which finger prints aren’t allowed by the client either for esthetical or for functional reasons.
Apart from all this, this packaging solution also offers a lot more possibilities regarding quality control and any supplementary product operations.
Quadrant CMS and Vaskon developed this universal packaging unit, based on robot technology. The robot cell is able to pack products either in boxes, plastic crates or blisters, with varying dimensions.
This packaging solution also offers possibilities in case of quality control, extra product operations and marking.
Source: Industrie Technisch Management, Erwin Vanvuchelen
