Ready" to go robot routing system minimises on site programming and commissioning costs

Citation

(2003), "Ready" to go robot routing system minimises on site programming and commissioning costs", Industrial Robot, Vol. 30 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/ir.2003.04930fad.002

"Ready" to go robot routing system minimises on site programming and commissioning costs

"Ready to go" robot routing system minimises on site programming and commissioning costs

Keywords: Robots, FANUC

FANUC Robotics UK Limited has delivered the first of a new generation of "Ready to go" fully enclosed routing cells. Delivered just 8 weeks from the date of order the system has been designed to be "up and running" and producing "in tolerance" products within hours of unloading (Plate 1).

The design philosophy of the cell is based on the increasingly important need to reduce product "time to market". FANUC's customers, particularly in the automotive sector, often need to procure process equipment before tooling or even pre- production samples are made available.

Julian Cashman, FANUC's Project Manager, explains "We've supplied many systems similar to this to tier one automotive suppliers and so kept to well proven components. Comprising a FANUC M-710i robot, a positioning table and full enclosure, the main difference was driven by the need to dramatically reduce on site installation and commissioning time. The starting point was to ensure that the cell was designed for 'fully assembled' delivery with the aim of loading the entire cell in a single lift. As no components and tooling were available during the build process, off line programming (OLP) was used to generate the robot programme and locations from CAD data. Where we make significant time-savings on 'ready to run' systems is being able to accurately calibrate the robot cell and its environment relative to the tooling, before it [the tooling] is made available to us."

"To enable this, a hand held co-ordinate measuring machine (CMM) is used to measure the robot and the tooling positioners location relative to its real world environment. As the simulated robot programmes are developed from the same reference data as the tooling we are able to update the reference frames in the robot controller from the nominal to the measured frames."

Further assisting the system's ability to "hit the floor running", the structure, measuring 5.0 m long × 3.6 m wide × 2.5 m high and weighing 7 tonnes, is transported fully assembled - complete with control system - with only the connection of services and floor fixing required on delivery.

Plate 1 A "ready to go" fully enclosed routing cell