Plastic - Adding value for the customer

A major UK supplier of plastic components has recently installed a number of assembly systems to produce parts for a major UK brewery.

The company chose Modular Automation as their system integration partner owing to the innovative concept put forward during the selection process.

The customer's Technical Director, said: “we chose Modular because of their innovative approach, ‘can do’ attitude, general project management skills and the understanding of our business needs. When making selections of this nature, the key parameter judged, is the concept, when measured against our CTQs, [Critical To Quality] as this ultimately determines our performance, an ideal grasped and built upon by Modular.”

The system utilises a six axis robot which de-moulds 24 product halves. During transfer, a vacuum system on the robot performs a 100% hole presence check before passing the part halves onto the tooling.

The part halves are then heated and welded together using a servo driven system, to produce a complete sphere. The use of a servo driven system offers increased benefits in product quality control and product output, and has the added benefit of reduced maintenance, downtime & noise.

Automotive - Capsule Assembly

 

One of Britain’s top product design agencies selected Modular Automation to design and build production equipment for a new windscreen repair system. The new device is used by a windscreen replacement and repair specialist.

A director of the customer explained why the new system is so important: “Windscreen repair is fast becoming the preferred option to windscreen replacement, last year it saved the automotive insurance & fleet industries around £400million globally. It is obviously much cheaper to repair a windscreen than replace one and nothing is lost to the strength or integrity of the screen.”

Modular Automation was selected from six companies short-listed to design and build a machine to fully automate the production of the tiny disposable syringe used to inject a special resin into a damaged windscreen. Engineers at Modular were able to configure the company’s off the shelf assembly cell, the MAC (Modular Assembly Cell) to assemble, fill and test the fragile devices.

“We were delighted that Modular Automation was appointed. They understood our stringent design requirements and were able to implement the high levels of technology required for such a vital part of the process.”

One of the many challenges faced by the design team was to develop a method of feeding and placement of two very small ‘O’ rings. This was accomplished using an ingenious technique involving ‘floating’ the rings using compressed air to prevent them twisting as they pass down the linear track. While the integration of a six finger O-ring gripper allowed for high quality placement of the O-rings. During the rigorous testing carried out by Modular an efficiency of 98% was achieved.

Medical - Fighting MRSA

A Birmingham manufacturer has installed new high-speed production equipment from Modular Automation to streamline the manufacture of its revolutionary disposable privacy curtain. Production is now around ten times faster than before.

The revolutionary curtain plays a valuable role in the fight against hospital infections, including MRSA, by making the task of changing and processing them much quicker and easier. Usually, privacy curtains are the only item not routinely changed when a new patient is admitted to a hospital ward.

Not surprisingly, demand for the new curtain is high and the ability to maximise the speed of production is vital to ensure that orders are fulfilled on time.

Previous attempts by other equipment manufacturers to automate the production process had been fraught with difficulty, and the results disappointing. The team at Modular approached the challenge with a ‘clean sheet of paper’ and set about devising a system that would be both fast and reliable. One of the problems facing the engineers was how to locate and ultrasonically weld the attachment hooks at the top of the pleated curtain. The solution was to temporarily flatten the material as it left the pleating machine and then refold it after welding the hooks in place. A buffer zone of material was also created between the two machines to allow for differences in operating speeds.

Great care was taken during installation to minimise disruption to the production process and to ensure that the Modular system was smoothly integrated with the existing pleating machinery.

“With the new machine we just feed the roll of fabric in one end and get curtain out of the other,” . “ It’s around ten times faster than before, and the fabric doesn’t have to be handled by the operator.

The remarkably success of the curtain, means that production will soon need to be increased to meet demand. Modular is working closely with the customer to build on what has already been achieved and to ensure that production objectives continue to be met in the future.


For more information on any of these solutions, or to enquire if we could build a bespoke solution for you, please contact us.