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The Romanian company decided to automate the production processes with a UR5 cobot. The choice was made due to the collaborative nature of the solution and the ease with which collaborative robots from Universal Robots can be implemented. The integrated UR5 cobot is currently used for two applications; the ultrasonic welding of wheel arches and the milling of holes in plastic parts.
In the first application, the wheel arches, due to their considerable size, are injected as semi-components to be merged by ultrasonic welding in 5 or 7 points. The welding of the two half-parts takes place in a fixed assembly station in the center where the UR5 cobot is integrated. An ultrasonic welding probe is attached to the robotic arm which is programmed to perform welding in the points established according to the project. The cobot has managed to improve the quality of weld uniformity and doubled productivity: "An operator managed to manually weld at most 140 parts in an 8-hour shift,” said Mugurel Mihai, General Manager of Alseca Engineering. “With the help of the cobot, it is possible to weld 290-300 parts in an 8-hour shift.”
For the second application, a milling cutter is attached to the cobot, which it maneuvers to execute, with an accuracy of tenths of millimeters, milling oval-shaped or round holes in certain components.
The integration of the UR5 cobot has taken place in a short time and without complications. The arrival of the new colleague also meant an opportunity for some employees to develop their skills and learn new things. "The implementation process went fast. It practically started with the training of two of the company's employees, who before the actual purchase of the cobot took courses for three days to find out how collaborative robots work and can be programmed,” said Alseca Engineering’s General Manager. ”After the purchase, it took only two weeks to implement the cobot in the production process for the ultrasonic welding application and another week for the milling application.”
