Over the last couple of years, following their relocation to a bespoke production facility, we have been working closely with a customer in the North of England helping them improve their production automation and efficiency.
Our main involvement has been the replacement of old robots as well as installing further new Apex robots as required when new moulding machines have been installed.
Installing a robot is the relatively easy bit but it is only the start. Maximising the robot’s integration with the moulding machine and upstream/downstream systems is the real key to getting the best return on the investment.
Therefore, we are also proud to also have been asked to help improve production throughput and machine/robot automation by designing and supplying end of arm tooling systems for the robots. In addition, we have designed and supplied high specification conveyor systems (some of which are twin belt and dual direction) for the automated filling of products into boxes by the Apex robots.
The Apex robots are all full servo 3 axis Cartesian robots and the models supplied were determined by the size of machine onto which each is fitted. All Apex robots have the same full and complete programming capability as standard – there are no hidden optional extras.
There is a rule of thumb that, from installation, a sprue picker/radial action robot should be able to pay for itself within 6 months and a beam robot should be able to pay for itself within 12 months. We’re confident that these installations will easily meet the relevant payback schedules.
In fact, such has the success been with the Apex robots and our conveyor systems working in conjunction with the new moulding machines that not only have production efficiency, product output, quality and machine utilisation drastically improved, they have done so to such a degree that our customer no longer has to operate a night shift!
For more information about how we can help your business please contact Paul Shrimpton direct on 07748 902626.