Product category:
Rotary and linear transfer machines
News Release from: EMC | Subject: Automated part collectors - rotary transfer
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 26 April 2006
Part collectors enable better transfer
machine use
Automated part collectors that collect parts in a controlled manner are allowing a motion and fluid control specialist to use untapped capacity on eleven rotary transfer machines.
Automated part collectors from EMC are allowing motion and fluid control specialist Norgren to use untapped capacity on eleven rotary transfer machines Because the EMC units collect the components in a controlled manner, Norgren has been able to run its machines 'lights out' during the night shift and gained production capacity equivalent to a new machine running three shifts
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 12 Aug 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
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The EMC system automatically collects parts from any type of production machine and keeps them separated in controlled batches.
Each batch can be defined by number of parts, weight or running time and is collected into a separate container.
Once a container is full, the next automatically moves into place.
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On the Norgren machines, the units are equipped with nine or thirteen baskets per unit, depending on the components being produced and are designed to easily hold a full shift's production.
The main factor driving Norgren towards lights out operation will be familiar to any British manufacturer - efficiency and international competitiveness.
Lights out operation meant it could fully utilise the capacity of its existing machines without increasing its overheads.
The main turned part shop at Norgren's Lichfield, UK, factory is dedicated to the high-volume manufacture of components such as collets, adaptors and connectors for its own pneumatic systems.
Eleven Hydromat rotary transfer machines and a similar number of Wickman multi spindle automatics are producing literally millions of parts a year.
Production engineer, Mark Carwithen says that the EMC units were the answer to a problem they had been working on for some time.
"We had initially tried to design a part collector ourselves but is had never been particularly successful", he said.
"The EMC system is a proven machine designed for the job, rather than a one-off special-purpose machine but it can still be tailored to the needs of the customer." Before the EMC units were installed, Norgren would work 16h double day shifts and leave a few machines running unmanned until they filled up the work basket (also known as a pan) or ran out of material.
As Hydromat technician Ansell McLean explained: "We used to have one pan under the work chute which we knew would hold 500 parts.
So, at the end of the shift, we would empty the pan and set the machine to run another 500 parts and then turn itself off.
And that is all you would produce until you started it again the next morning.
One of the barriers to moving to lights out production was how to deal with the components if you wanted to make more than one pan's worth.
With this new system, we have got enough pans to take all we produce in an eight hour shift.
At the end of the day shift, all we have to do is make sure that there is enough material in the bar feed rack and the pans just keep on working through." Cell leader Darren Green explained that the EMC systems also help to pinpoint any quality issues.
"If there has been a problem, you know where it has occurred and the production is not all in a pile but separated into nine different batches." Green added: "And because EMC can tailor the design of the part collectors to the customers' needs, Norgren was able to rethink the layout of its cells.
We wanted to replace the benches where we did the quality checks, and EMC was able to provide a system that doubled as a quality station, with a worktop we could store gauges on and a backboard for drawings and charts.
We do not have to take the parts away from the machine to do our quality checks and we are saving space too." He said: "A further benefit is that we can fix the number of parts in each box so that our safe limit of 15kg for unaided lifting is never exceeded.
It is about getting more from what you have got and using your people more effectively.
The EMC units have given us the capacity to ramp up production without investing in new machine tools and given us the flexibility to quote for new work on the back of that capacity.".
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