May 2022 Volume 4

AUTOMATION

In recent months, our engineers have visited forging plants in several states and European countries and talked to dozens of forge leadership teams and floor managers to understand the challenges they face every day. The most common challenge that many plants nowadays face is the labor shortage. Forges, like other sectors, are no exception, facing a crisis in which a lack of workers has a negative influence on productivity and economic indicators. Finding employees in the forging sector is more challenging if we consider the harsh-working conditions: dirt, high temperature, and noise. These affect not only finding employees but also retention. It often happens that employees quickly leave the job in favor of better work conditions. The forging sector has trouble ensuring the continuity of production due to obstacles that seem to be beyond their reach. Part of the solution can be found in deploying automation. First Steps Towards Automation Forging factories that decided to improve their productivity through automation using vibration feeders partially found a way to increase performance despite the lack of workforce. This type of solution leads to additional challenges such as high, repetitive maintenance costs and production downtime causing financial losses. Next to that, vibration feeders create a noisy work environment. These negative aspects discourage the automatization of production processes. A revolutionary approach to handling billets with robots and a 3D vision system ticks all the boxes: labor shortage, reliability, reduced noise, decrease in maintenance costs, and flexibility to handle a variety of parts with different shapes and materials. Automation? Yes, But a Smart One! A robot equipped with 3D vision is entering forging plants more and more often, especially for part feeding applications. This technology brings their production environment to a truly new level. Now, what are the key elements that make the performance of their plant successful from a technological point of view? A well-planned and designed robot cell, complemented with the right solution components, offers an interesting alternative to the traditional billet feeders. Following these conditions, one does not have to keep a large room in mind. To make automation simpler, more effective, and reliable, Pickit 3D is pushing innovation to the edge of what is possible in bin picking. A crucial part of that innovation is the Billet Picker, a smart and patented end-of-arm-tool, specifically designed to address the challenges of the industry. In combination with Pickit 3D’s market-leading 3D vision platform and bin-picking application, it provides an innovative way forward. The Billet-Picker: A Patented, Fit-For-Purpose End Of-Arm-Tool for Billet-Picking The Billet Picker is an assembled robot end-of-arm tool (EOAT) that integrates with the Pickit 3D vision system and billet-specific software for robotic handling. It saves you time and money, eliminating the need to go through the entire EOAT development process which is a cost-heavy R&D process. Pickit 3D ensures

seamless integration as the vision system and end-effector come in one single and complete package. The vision system software only requires a configuration according to the specifics of the application. Teaching the parts that the robot needs to pick is an easy and intuitive task. For example, if you have cylindrical billets, all you have to do is specify the cylinder diameter and length. But also other, more complicated part types (dimensions, weight, shape) can be taught to the Pickit 3D vision system, typically using a CAD file. Once Pickit knows what parts to look for, it detects them in the bin and sends the best one to pick to the robot. Innovative Concept The robot tools play a crucial role in determining the success rate of pickable items. It is particularly significant in applications like picking billets from the bin, where parts are randomly oriented because the robot tool is subject to colliding with the bin or its contents during the picking motion. The Pickit 3D Billet Picker builds on the concept of having a flexible tooltip, either magnetic or suction based. The flexibility maximizes the number of pickable parts and minimizes the required footprint for the complete robot cell. Next to that, it is capable of extracting even partly blocked parts or parts close to a bin wall. On top of that, this concept applies not only to one specific type of object due to the adjustable tuning mechanism. Modularity For aWide Range of Billets The Billet Picker is designed to bemodular and to cover a broad range of cylindrical and even square billets and shafts. This modularity allows the use of different combinations of tool bodies, tool holder modules and picking modules based on the desired function of the gripper. Today, there are two variants of the tool body: medium and large. Each type of tool body can be mounted along with either a single magnet or double magnets.

Image 2: The variants of Pickit’s 3D gripper bodies Other than magnets, the medium and large module holders can carry vacuum picking modules for non-magnetic billets. These vacuum modules work with the same range of parts as the magnet modules. This combination covers a wide range of billets. In Image 3, you can see chosen examples showing a combination of the modules that allow the handling scope of billets from around 2 kg up to 43 kg and more.

FIA MAGAZINE | MAY 2022 35