Company U, a designer and manufacturer of various electrical components, had several problems with work efficiency at its plant.
The plant relied heavily on manual labor to sort processed parts onto conveyors for the next process, which was a bottleneck in production efficiency. The speed of the process, such as sorting and removing defective parts, varied depending on the skill level of each employee, and there was also the risk of human error. In addition, the company needed to operate 24 hours a day during the busy season, and data showed that the rate of human error increased during this period, so an immediate improvement plan was needed.
Company U introduced picking robots to improve production efficiency, reduce errors, and cut labor costs. However, the introduction of robots was costly and posed a high engineering hurdle. Mr. A of the company's Development Department said, "We had to find a way to make the robots more efficient and to reduce labor costs.
In the past, we purchased robots to automate our sorting operations, but they were extremely expensive to install, and the replacement of worn parts and maintenance was left entirely up to the manufacturer, resulting in huge running costs. In addition, we had to ask the manufacturer each time we wanted to improve the process, which meant we could not respond flexibly."
To avoid increasing costs, Company U is considering in-house production of parallel link robots. However, the company had little expertise in robot manufacturing, including system design and construction methods. The company built a prototype robot on its own, but the development project was beset by difficulties in balancing arm strength and weight reduction, as well as various defects in the robot's components.
While Mr. A was continuing to gather information in order to realize in-house production of robots, by chance he attended an industrial machinery exhibition, where his eye was caught by a demonstration model of a parallel link robot on display at SANYO DENKI CO., LTD. Denki's booth.
After speaking with the person in charge at the booth, Mr. A learned that SANYO DENKI CO., LTD. not only had a demonstration machine on display, but also had an extensive track record in robot manufacturing, including using in-house manufactured robots in its own factories.
Mr. A was very interested and consulted with Sanyo Denki about the issues his company was facing. The SANYO DENKI CO., LTD. representative suggested, "Not only can we provide parts such as controllers and servo systems, but we can also help you get started on development."
"We heard that they could provide technical support, from mechanical part selection to mechanism proposals, as well as image recognition for the sorting tracking system, so we immediately requested their support." (Mr. A)
For the technical support of this development, SANYO DENKI CO., LTD. proposed SANMOTION C controller, which has a wide range of robot control functions. In addition, we also explained the basic kinematics (*) so that even those with little knowledge or experience could operate the robot immediately.
"For basic operations such as moving a workpiece from point A to point B, the movement can be calculated with just two teaching points without having to consider the control of the constituent motors. As a result, we were able to significantly reduce development time." (Mr. A)
In addition, regarding the troublesome problem of component defects, Sanyo Denki accumulated maintenance know-how by providing advice on customizing materials and ideas for improving processing precision. Furthermore, SANYO DENKI CO., LTD. provided full support to U Company in realizing in-house production of robots, including by submitting drawings.
*Kinematics: arithmetic functions to simplify complex control of multi-axis robots
In this way, U Company succeeded in developing a parallel link sorting robot, which had once been put on the verge of failure.
Company U has achieved the expected improvements in production efficiency and cost reductions, and is now considering selling the developed robot to external parties in the future.
"In addition to parallel link robots, there are basic kinematics for Cartesian robots, SCARA robots, and articulated robots, and they can flexibly customize other kinematics, so we can look forward to further automating our own equipment and expanding our external sales business in the future. We're grateful for SANYO DENKI CO., LTD. 's detailed proposals." (Mr. A)
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