Assembly - April 2009 - (Page 9)

Kinemetrix, outlines the system and explains his company’s “agile automation” approach. For more information, call 859-381-9937 or visit www.kinemetrix.com. What equipment feeds the parts? Wheels are manually loaded via a servo-driven lift-assist device with custom universal tooling. Chromeplated clads are shuttled into the cell by a six-axis robot equipped with an automatic tool changer. What methods are used to assemble the product? A room-temperature vulcanizing adhesive in conjunction with mechanical undercut features secure the assembly. The adhesive is dispensed with automated metering equipment. Mechanical locking is accomplished via a custom servo-regulated pneumatic press. What inspections are included? A vision system inspects wheel orientation. The amount of adhesive dispensed is measured in real-time and compared to control limits. Optical sensors conﬁrm that plating tabs have been removed. Positional feedback on the assembly press conﬁrms engagement of mechanical fastening. All assembly data is collected and stored to a database using radio frequency identiﬁcation tags on the pallets. An inkjet prints an identiﬁcation code on each wheel for traceability. How did you help the customer design the product for assembly? We worked closely with the customer in the product development phase to improve the design and tolerancing of the mechanical interlocks. Using data from the manufacturing cell, we helped troubleshoot the product design and upstream manufacturing issues. Using actual process data really accelerates problem solving. No time is wasted on speculation. Can the system accommodate product variants? The system accommodates all 128 variations. It is designed for a 4-minute tool-less changeover, but actual changeover times of 1.5 minutes have been documented. This is achieved through: automatic tool change system on the handling robot. universal wheel-handling tooling on the lift devices. tool-less, quick-change ﬁxtures on the assembly pallets. automatic clamp-and-locate tooling for the assembly press. ID checks for all hard tooling ensure correct assembly and prevent tool damage. checking wheel orientation with machine vision rather than discrete sensors. What was the most challenging aspect of the system? A signiﬁcant challenge was that the product and process technology were relatively new. Many product details and production volume projections were vaguely understood. That put a lot of responsibility on us to provide a system with the ﬂexibility to meet return-on-investment targets regardless of what curveballs were thrown after system handover. After analyzing the customer’s current product designs, likely variations, development risks, product pipeline and volume projections, we employed an array of tools from our agile automation approach to system design. One of our design rules was, “If it touches the part, it requires tool-less changeover.” This helped the customer in its lean journey by Quality Endures. We shipped the first Alpha Series Cam Indexer on September 29, 1997. ZERO replacement cam followers have yet been shipped. FR BH Series Base Machine EE 2-Y WARRANEAR T Y! NEW! Alpha Series Table Indexer GY Series Pick & Place ED Series Shaft Output ServoDex Roller Gear Technology Largest cam follower sizes in the industry with unmatched accuracy. 10655 State Route 47 • PO Box 4338 • Sidney, Ohio 45365 Phone: (937) 498-4901 • sales@sankyoamerica.com www.sankyoamerica.com www.assemblymag.com April 2009 / ASSE M B LY 9 http://www.kinemetrix.com http://www.sankyoamerica.com http://www.sankyoamerica.com http://www.assemblymag.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Assembly - April 2009

Assembly - April 2009 Contents Editorial Automation Profiles New & Noteworthy Assembly Plant of the Year Down the Line Welding Beads Quality in Assembly Assembly Lines Assembly in Action Standard Helps Suppliers Take Flight Plastics Under the Hood Leak Testing Auto Parts Press for Success Products Advertisers Index Classified Leading Lean

Assembly - April 2009

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