Company: Mahr and SIM Automation
Industry: Measuring technology (medical, automotive and other industries)
DENSO Products Used: VS-087
Company Location: Germany
Website: http://www.mahr.de
THE PROBLEM
Turning the vision of Industry 4.0 into reality requires flexible, precise and fast measuring processes in order to ensure the quality of components. In particular, this applies to modern manufacturing in industries such as parts suppliers for carmakers or medical companies. The key to this concept is to integrate smart machines, products, storage systems and all operating resources, i.e. to inter-connect all processes within the value chain.
THE SOLUTION
The application specialist Mahr and SIM Automation, a manufacturer of special purpose machines, joined forces in developing a measuring cell designed to function in a more automated way, but also faster, more wireless and more user-friendly. The DENSO robot VS 087 plays a crucial part in this system.
- The market-ready measuring cell provides a contour measurement, an automatic labeling of the work pieces to be measured, and also integrates the necessary robot handling – in this case, the system measures slewing pistons for medical purposes, loaded by a DENSO Robotics VS 087 robot.
- SIM Automation is handling the assembly unit and the systems for verifying, inspecting, loading and sorting as well as the actual robot handling, the project conceptualization and management.
- Mahr is providing the measuring technology; some of its important components are the MarShaft flexible shaft measuring technology, die MarSurf surface and contour measurement, the customer-specificMarSolution dimension measurement, the iwi radio manual measurement technology and the software platforms MarWin, MarCom and D1200X.
- In the measuring system, the VS 087 grabs the work piece, which is identified via DMC (DataMatric Code) before the robot loads the turntable. After the measuring program has been selected, the work piece can be measured, the data will then be analyzed and stored. Finally, the VS 087 loads the marker, which reads the DMC, thus accessing the works piece’s number in order to label it.
- Subsequently, the robot places the work piece onto the tray, followed by two scanner positioning test. The advantages of using a fully automated measuring system are evident – the work piece carries all necessary data on it and thus becomes a „smart object“.
- As the system is capable of measuring three different types of slewing pistons, the actual work pieces may show a higher level of differentiation. And the process as such becomes faster as the metering process is automated.
The two companies haven chosen the DENSO VS 087 due to its speed, the easy integration of its software into existing customer systems (the robot is controlled by the programming language STEP 7) and, last but not least, due to the good experiences they have made with DENSO, primarily in medical applications and the excellent DENSO customer service.
THE RESULT
Thanks to its flexibility, high speed and the easy interface handling, the six-axis DENSO VS 087 plays a decisive part in the development of modern measuring technology. In addition, the robot saves space and can be easily integrated into the measuring cell. In the future, the cell will automatically signal when it requires maintenance or new parts, i.e. repairs and maintenance can be scheduled automatically. Thus the measuring cell automates quality inspection, also making the process as such more reliable.
The robot’s reliability precludes human error. Automated measuring processes open up a new dimension of quality assurance for parts or components in manufacturing across industries. The robot-assisted, inter-connected and reliable metering will improve both quality and manufacturing costs: The idea of Industry 4.0 will become a reality.
Watch the metering system in operation: www.sim-automation.de/news/control_2015_stuttgart.php