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ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION
Automating cricket ball production Global cricket ball manufacturer Kookaburra made innovative use of automation to develop a machine-tending robotic system for efficiency and upskilling. Under the laws of cricket, it is illegal for players to rub any substance other than saliva and sweat onto the ball, let alone scuffing it with their fingernails. Similarly, strict rules apply to the manufacturing of cricket balls. Cricket ball manufacturer Kookaburra designed its first ever machine tending robotic system to produce the perfect ball, with the help of industrial robot supplier TM Robotics and its Australian partner MAP Services. Machine-tending is repetitive work. The job of loading and unloading machines with parts or materials is usually done by humans. In the production of cricket balls, workers would place covers – the outside leather of cricket balls – onto trays after being pressed into shape to form half of a cricket ball. These trays are then placed into a rack and moved to the next process – trimming excess leather from the pressed cover. Originally, when Kookaburra approached MAP Services, the distribution partner for Shibaura Machine’s industrial robot ranges in Australia, its system for manufacturing cricket balls involved having human operators at the next stage of production. Workers would manually remove these trays from the rack, bending and twisting to place at the tray and trimmer every couple of minutes. Workers would then pick and place each cover into a trimming machine, which uses a sharp blade to remove excess leather from the ball. Not only is this process highly repetitive, but it also puts workers at risk to major hand injuries by being in close proximity to a blade. Rather than this longwinded manual process, MAP Services suggested an automated robotic system for loading and unloading the trimmer, including a tray dispensing system. The plan was to place the full trays of cricket ball covers into the dispenser, feeding trays automatically to the TVL700 robot to load and unload the trimming machine. This requires only one operator to load a set of trays every 20 to 25 minutes. To do this, MAP Services required robotics equipment and approached Shibaura Machine partner and authorised distributor TM Robotics. The global manufacturer supplied a TVL 700 Shibaura Machine robot, which was integrated with MAP Services’ vision system for the project — never seen before for this unusual application.
Vision systems for automation MAP Services designed an automatic racking system, where six trays carrying between 80 and 90 cricket ball covers are placed onto a conveyor. This part of the application usually scatters the covers in random locations, meaning a vision system is required to ensure the robot can accurately decipher where each cover is and how to pick it up. While CAD-based systems can identify items scattered onto a conveyor or workspace, the challenge is recognising the position of each item when presented in a random order — let alone determining the best method for the robot to pick them in. The vision system uses high-speed cameras to continuously capture images. Using intelligent software, the system can process these images and identify the exact position of an item. In this case, cricket ball covers. The system then determines the most logical order to pick up each cover and does so with sub millimetre accuracy, with the same ease as a human worker.
AMT APR 2022
Kookaburra’s new machine-tending robotic system incorporates a TVL 700 Shibaura Machine robot, supplied by TM Robotics, which was integrated with MAP Services’ vision system.
Using Shibaura Machine’s robot, the vision system is easily integrated to help identify the position of each cricket ball cover and share its exact co-ordinates with a single-axis Cartesian, before travelling to pick up covers at the position identified by the vision system. The robot grabs the cover off the Cartesian and puts it in the trimming machine, before empty trays are fed into an accumulation bin for collection. With an operator required only to load trays every 20-25 minutes, other workers can upskill and be redeployed in the company, rather than carrying out these laborious, repetitive jobs. All while the robot and trimmer continue to produce covers before daily shifts start, after daily shifts end and even during breaks.
