3X The Cap Assembly Output With Simple Cobot Use

Something as simple as a plastic cap can become a pain in the production process.

Put some strain on its production, and it can become a bottleneck.

That’s what happened to Designed Mouldings, a leading Australian injunction molding manufacturer.

After a sudden surge in demand for plastic caps, their hands were full (literally, as they were manually performing part of the process).

“We had production volumes of caps between 10-20,000 a month, and then all of a sudden they wanted between 50-100,000 a month, and it was a very manual operation,” said Paul Neumeyer, Managing Director at Designed Mouldings.

So, they reached out to Australis Engineering, and… the rest is history. 

The introduction of the Techman Robots TM5 cobot helped them triple the output of finished caps and eliminate product waste that used to result from human error.

The Issues Of Manual Cap Finishing

Designed Mouldings would manually install wads into the plastic caps. An extremely tedious and boring task.

This is what it looks like:

This caused labor issues and a productivity bottleneck. It’s challenging to find and retain employees to do this manually, especially to meet the demand of 50-100,000 a month.

Another problem was waste. If staff dropped the cap to the ground, they’d discard it. 

Finally, it was just painfully slow. They had to ramp up production.

The Need For Cobot Flexibility And System Selection

While Designed Mouldings needed help to meet the increased demand for plastic caps, they required a flexible solution they could reuse for other types of caps and products.

Therefore, their automation system had to be easy to adapt to various production needs.

Australis Engineering recommended using the Techman Robot’s TM5 collaborative robot alongside an OnRobot VGC-10 gripper as an end effector. 

The TM5 has the ability to “see” using an integrated vision system. So, it can actually recognize items, aiding with automated product assembly. This makes it easier to redeploy for multiple tasks, which is precisely what Designed Mouldings was looking for.

However, they also required the ability to grip wads and insert them in caps without damage. 

The OnRobot VGC-10 vacuum gripper was flexible and could be configured to work with tight small plastic caps. It also included a built-in electric vacuum system, so the equipment footprint and maintenance costs were minimal.

Using The Visual System

The TM5 cobot can recognize wads on the table and pick them up using the vacuum gripper.

Using the Techman Robot’s abilities, the cobot interprets visual data into command prompts. So, it can position itself, accurately assess the item’s location, and identify the item. 

In the Designed Modlings case, the cobot would identify wads, even if placed randomly on the table. Next, the TM5 grips them using the vacuum end effector, and installs them in a plastic cap, while simultaneously moving the cap to the finished caps bin.

“Setting up the VGC-10 gripper was fairly quick. It only took us 3-4 days to install and integrate it with the cobot and to program and deploy the collaborative application,” said Daniel Neumeyer, Plant Supervisor at Designed Mouldings.

300% Productivity Boost And ROI

After cobot implementation, Designed Mouldings improved their cap output by 300%.

The manual wad installation was a problem, and the cobot solved it.

Likewise, they reduced their product waste. Manually, the monotony and repetitiveness of the task would get to anyone, occasionally causing staff to drop caps and incurring waste. 

“So, a gripper can do about 20,000 per day, which is triple what we were doing in the manual process. We are finding now that the wastage is down between 1-2% due to the operators not caps on the floor. We are now able to cope with that increase in production orders without putting the pressure on our workforce” said Paul.

The improved productivity and reduced waste led to a 6 months ROI on the cobot system, making it a massive success for Designed Mouldings. 

To learn more about the used cobot, gripper, and Australis Engineering, see the links below:

• https://australiseng.com.au/

• https://onrobot.com/en/products/vgc10

• https://www.tm-robot.com/en/tm5-700/

Enjoy your week!

The Cobot Spotlight Team