Bin picking solution extends equipment lifespan by a decade
In short
PrecisionForm, a market leader in small custom metal parts, was challenged to automate the task of picking parts in deep bins and inserting them into a CNC machine. The company deployed Universal Robots’ ActiNav system for flexible machine loading, enabling them to boost competitiveness, overcome labor challenges, empower their workforce and extend the lifespan of older equipment.
The business transformation
What’s the biggest headache in automating a task? How to present the part to the robot. This was the conclusion PrecisionForm quickly reached when automating their initial project; deploying a robot to pick piston rings and place them on a micrometer for inspection. Like many parts at the Pennsylvania-based contract manufacturer, the rings were batch processed and arrived in big bins, all jumbled together. In order for the cobot to pick them, an operator had to lay them out in a grid pattern on a tray first.
“50-75% of our time spent getting that application up and running was figuring out how the robot would pick the parts,” says Alex Corckran, President and CEO of PrecisionForm. “Having an operator lay out parts for the cobot was still faster than doing the whole inspection process manually – but wouldn’t it be nice if the cobot could just pick directly from the bin and bypass this whole step?”
PrecisionForm Inc
Researching solutions
PrecisionForm started researching bin picking solutions for their next project; picking parts out of bins for CNC milling. The company contacted a number of vendors and sent them sample parts to determine if they could be picked out of bins. “The answers were always, Yes: but...’ and the “buts” were never acceptable to us,” says Corckran, recalling how some systems had trouble with parts that were certain colors, others had issues with flat parts, while some systems required the vendor’s engineer to come out and handle the changeover from one part to the next.
Small volumes, big problems
Using a bowl feeder for part presentation wasn’t a viable option, explains Corckran. “Bowl feeders are effective when you have very high volumes and you have the right part for the job. For other parts, when you have lower volumes, the changeover between one part to the next on a bowl feeder is either impossible, or just takes too long to make it effective. In many cases, it’s just easier to have a person do that work rather than switch over the automation process.”
Alex Corckran, PrecisionForm CEOWe have 50 to 100 parts that we touch on a weekly basis for inspection or secondary processes. The vast majority of those parts are not high enough quantities to justify having a fully automated solution that we can’t easily switch between parts.
ActiNav in action
A simple automation choice
PrecisionForm already owned a UR3 and a UR5 cobot from Universal Robots; the UR3 handles the initial piston ring inspection process and the UR5 loads and unloads parts in a brake press. Building on its positive experiences with Universal Robots’ cobots and the impressive results of the initial bin picking samples, PrecisionForm decided to purchase an additional UR5 fitted with the ActiNav solution and deploy for a very simple, low-hanging fruit task; picking firearm parts out of a bin and into a CNC machine. The task has a cycle time of 90 seconds and requires one full-time operator to tend it, making it a perfect task to automate.
Samples from ActiNav impress
When Universal Robots (UR) and UR distributor Applied Controls reached out to PrecisionForm to suggest a test of the ActiNav solution, Corckran was skeptical: “We figured it was going to be the same as all the other bin-picking solutions, where we send them a part and weeks later they send us a ‘But.’” Nevertheless, PrecisionForm sent the ActiNav team sample parts along with CAD drawings and 3D models. “We were actually shocked,” says Corckran. “We sent them two parts, including one with a very small, flat surface that never sits in the bin properly and within 24 hours they had sent us three demo videos of ActiNav actually picking the parts out of a bin.”
The UR cobot and ActiNav kit create a great combination
When A UR cobot is combined with the award-winning ActiNav Machine Loading kit, a flexible and easy to use machine loading solution is created. The kit consists of hardware and software that integrate seamlessly with the cobot to synchronously handle vision processing, collision-free motion planning, and autonomous real-time robot control.
A speedy setup process
“The first step is to define the environment and calibrate the sensors, which is very straightforward. You drag the robot arm to points where you want to place environment objects and once you define those points, the robot will autonomously plan its paths based on that information” says Dan Vazquez, industrial automation engineer at PrecisionForm. Next, the cobot was simply fed a CAD file of the part to be picked. “ActiNav will be able to identify the part within the bin, as well as its position on the end effector while it also autonomously plans further movements,” he explains, adding that PrecisionForm implemented two re-grip stations in the cycle where parts are placed to optimize cycle time and give the cobot the correct angle to pick the part for final placement.
A longer life for legacy equipment
PrecisionForm’s manufacturing facility combines the “latest-and-greatest CNC equipment” with “30-year old equipment that’s still very effective at its job,” says Corckran. The ability to implement ActiNav on older equipment doesn’t just have the obvious ROI of replacing an operator or allowing a single operator to operate four machines, explains Corckran, it allows companies to rethink whether or not that piece of equipment needs to be replaced: “For example, we have some machines that produce very high-volume parts, in the millions a year. At some point, those machines wear out, and they stop producing 100 percent, or 99.999 percent good parts. In the old reality, we would have to replace that machine to stay competitive,” he says and continues: “However, if we can implement ActiNav next to that machine and inspect out the one percent of bad parts, we’ve just taken a million dollar piece of equipment, added a very inexpensive solution to it, and potentially gotten another ten years out of it.”
Improving daily production
The tolerances of parts manufactured at PrecisionForm are extremely tight and customers scrutinize every part. In order to keep the company’s old equipment producing at the level customers expect, the operators stop once an hour for ten to fifteen minutes and do a full inspection of both the part and the die. “That’s as much as 15 to 20 percent of daily production lost, that we can now recuperate using ActiNav” concludes Corckran, adding that in future application scenarios, PrecisionForm envisages also using an additional ActiNav system on its first piston ring inspection application, eliminating the manually-loaded trays.
Automation challenges solved:
Successfully picks parts out of deep bins Eliminated part presentation challenges Replaced repetitive manual tasks using safe and collaborative automation Deployed on legacy equipment Suitable for deployment on additional applications
Key value drivers:
Flexible machine loading and bin-picking capabilities Improved inspection processes Employees freed up for more value-adding tasks Extending lifespan of legacy equipment Small footprint Collaborative, safe and easy to program
Tasks solved by collaborative robots:
UR's ActiNav handles machine loading and bin-picking at PrecisionForm. ActiNav's powerful bin-picking capabilities eliminate part presentation challenges, while its flexibility allows the system to be deployed in a variety of applications and on legacy machinery.
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