Workforce Development
Operator dumps parts into randomized bins and moves to another process, giving ActiNav system about two hours’ worth of work without employee intervention.
Cobots Improve Productivity and Labor Utilization
By picking parts from unstructured bins, the ActiNav system reduced assembly line labor requirements from four operators to three, for an immediate annual savings of $150,000 and a seven percent boost in productivity
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n Cheraw, South Carolina, two Schaeffler Group USA factories have been producing high-precision engine components and industrial products for North American markets for more than 50 years. While Schaeffler’s production facilities are already highly automated, Marty Parker, Director of Special Machinery, Americas, is always looking for ways to make production processes more autonomous and less dependent on manual labor. But Parker also notes that, “A lot of the low-hanging fruit’s been wiped out over the years, so now it’s a little more complicated.” Schaeffler’s special machinery group, called Sondermaschinenbau (SMB), supports the company’s global production facilities with special equipment and projects to extend automation and improve labor utilization and productivity.
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One of the complex holdouts in terms of automation was picking complex-geometry components jumbled together in bins, then placing the components in precise orientation on an automated conveyor for assembly. SMB turned to the Universal Robots (UR) ActiNav machine tending kit to handle this challenging task that couldn’t be cost-effectively automated—until now. The end result is improved labor utilization and productivity on previously manual lines.
Production Challenge: Increase Machine Output and Improve Efficiency on Assembly Line Within the Cheraw facility, 24/7 manufacturing lines produce a variable cam timer (VCT) to improve performance and reduce
