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MOTOMAN ROBOTICS (UK) LTD |
Press Release
ROBOTS FEED LATHES ECONOMICALLY 24/7
For the manufacture of propshafts for the latest Land Rover Discovery 3 and Range Rover Sport, GKN Driveline in Walsall has installed two new, automated turning cells. Each comprises a pair of Mazak lathes loaded and unloaded by a Motoman articulated-arm robot, plus conveyors and handling equipment. Replacing two operators working round the clock in shifts, the robots with one operator in attendance are resulting in savings that will pay for the capital cost of the robots and their integration.
Commented
Alan Sellman, Project Engineer, "We had been looking at automation for some
time, but one needs relatively large volumes to justify the investment. Then
the T5 contract came along, which was ideal for automation, so we decided to
take the plunge. We are currently producing 14,000 stub shafts per week in the
two cells, which are the first lathes on the Walsall site to use stand alone
robots."
A sister GKN Driveline factory in the US uses over 200 Motoman robots to tend a variety of machine tools, which persuaded the Walsall production engineering team to approach Motoman Robotics (UK) for the supply of two naked UP20s, which were integrated by Mr Sellman and his colleagues to feed both pairs of Mazak Nexus 250 lathes.
GKN Driveline Walsall was similarly responsible for the acquisition and design of peripheral equipment including robot grippers mounted on 'quickstops' which dislocate in the event of collision, all conveyors, and a one-in-10 sampling arrangement for quality control with automatic return of the tested part to the production conveyors using the robots' idle time.
Safety
measures include an interlock to ensure that a robot cannot crash into a manual
control pendant should one be left adjacent to the output conveyor or a machine
door inside a cell; and the use of a NetOp wireless remote networking system
that allows adjustments to operating parameters to be made from outside the cell
while production is in progress.
All machining on the CK 45 billets in the lathes are rotational, there being no milling content. Machined components that emerge from the automated turning cells are routed first to spline rolling and on to induction hardening, without any manual intervention.
Concluded Mr Sellman, "The Motoman robots in the automated turning cells have not missed a beat since they were installed in January 2005. We have employed robots within the welding process here for many years and following the success of this machine tending application, it is likely that more automated handling projects will follow."
Indeed, the next Motoman UP20 robot has already been earmarked for installation at the Walsall plant. It will pick components from a conveyor supplied from three manually tended lathes and feed them to a spline rolling machine, then on to an induction hardening machine and a tempering station.
For More Information Contact:
Motoman Robotics (UK) Ltd
Johnson Park, Wildmere Road, Banbury, Oxon OX16 3JU
Tel: 01295 272755
FAX: 01295 267127
E-mail:
information@motoman.co.uk