The first robot tends a complete machine cycle; it picks and places “book frames” that hold pieces to be molded into the injection molding machine, transports the units to a trimming fixture, places the part in front of an operator for further handling, and finally pushes a button to activate the cycle again. The second injection molding application uses a traditional cartesian robot that drops a molded piece down a slide where the UR robot picks it up and places it in a degating fixture, then palletizes the part on a table in front of the operator for inspection.

The third robot is deployed in a kitting application. Using a vacuum gripper the UR10 picks up a “clam shell” - the bottom part of a plastic box – then it places sterile wipes and saline solution into the clam shell, and pushes the box onto a conveyor. Before the UR10, Dynamic Group used six to seven employees at once to do the kitting application.

“Now we’re able to run it with as little as two people. Having this type of success out of the gate as first time rookies at this stuff has been phenomenal and totally unexpected. Our return on investment was less than two months, and we can even go further because we’re able to adapt the robots to other products so quickly,” says the CEO.

He placed the robots on bases with wheels and can now slide them between presses. McGillivray and his team are working on getting more UR robots into their production. Next step will be installing the smaller UR3 model directly on presses.

“The UR robots’ number of I/Os and the ease of access to them, makes this relatively simple to do. With quick tool changes we should be able to address our high mix low volume situation extremely well. We’re also looking to integrate a UR with a structured lighting system for doing micron level inspection 360 degrees around a part. That’s a capability we’re anxious to get in place.”