Marlan Lets Cobot Carry out Heavy Repetitive Sanding Work

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Marlan has been lively in machining so-called strong surfaces since 1986. Marlan works intently with its companions, together with sellers, architects and inside builders. Marlan provides sheets, shapes and freestanding bathtubs and is lively all through Europe. The corporate is the driving power behind the product of the identical identify: marlan, a mineral (ATH) stuffed polyester resin that’s extraordinarily immune to all house, backyard, and kitchen chemical substances. This is the reason this materials is extensively used for the manufacturing of bathtubs and sinks, amongst different issues.

Programming the UR cobot is simple, so the cobot was working at Marlan inside half an hour. Inside two weeks, the cobot was absolutely deployable in manufacturing.

The cobot may be very secure to work with, permitting staff to work on the identical product on the similar time.
The problem
One of many operations which might be widespread when processing strong floor merchandise is sanding. That is heavy, repetitive work that requires expert personnel. Such personnel is changing into more and more troublesome to seek out. As well as, it is crucial that the standard is assured. It grew to become more and more troublesome for Marlan to prepare this job correctly. The corporate due to this fact went seeking a technique to automate this course of as a lot as potential.

Employees solely want to pick a couple of reference factors and the cobot begins sanding.

All that’s left for the employees to do is the high-quality ending and checking of the product.
The answer
Rik Heerema, common supervisor at Marlan, was despatched a video through a relation of a robotic that was used for sanding surfaces. “After some looking I came upon that it was a cobot from Common Robots with a sanding attachment from Robotiq. I made a decision inside every week to make use of this mixture at Marlan.” 
After supply, the cobot was deployed inside two weeks. Heerema was capable of program it inside half an hour, with none programming expertise. After the implementation and set up, two staff had been educated and the cobot was fine-tuned to find out the right strain when sanding. This step was additionally the beginning of additional optimizing different elements of the manufacturing. In accordance with Heerema, some staff had been instantly enthusiastic, however others had been afraid of shedding their jobs. “However that is not what we’re about in any respect. We need to make it simpler for workers and provides them the chance to extend their output.” The staff are actually absolutely accustomed to the cobot and see it as a sort of colleague.
The cobot at Marlan is presently used for sanding bathtubs. This can be a giant object that’s troublesome to sand manually. A serious downside right here is monitoring constant high quality. Heerema: “However with a cobot you’ll be able to assure an excellent strain which additionally ensures fixed product high quality.”

 
That is one cause why Common Robots and Robotiq had been chosen. “The cobot from Common Robots is simple to program and Robotiq made the appropriate mixture with the programming software program for sanding,” Heerema says. “The remaining is simply plug-and-play.” 
QUOTE: “If you understand how a smartphone works, you additionally know how one can program a Common Robots cobot.”
The Ending Equipment from Robotiq makes programming course of purposes, resembling sanding and sprucing, very simple due to the Ending Copilot software program. The form of the floor, whether or not flat, curved or spherical, doesn’t matter, which additionally makes programming bathtub sanding simple. Beforehand, programming with out specialised software program took a number of days, whereas advanced trajectories can now be entered inside minutes by choosing solely 4-6 or 9 reference factors.
The sanding course of has grow to be loads smoother due to this utility, because the cobot takes the heavy lifting out of the arms of the worker, who now solely has to verify a couple of factors. On this means, Marlan is ready to automate eighty p.c of the method, which makes the entire thing cheaper in comparison with if a talented worker had been to sand manually full-time.
The expertise at Marlan has been so constructive that the corporate plans to put in a second robotic cell for bathtubs and, in time, one other one for sinks.

With a cobot, it’s potential to use even strain, making certain constant product high quality.

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