Assembly systems | ASSEMBLY

Small Robots Play a Big Role in Automation

Compact tabletop machines are becoming more popular with manufacturers

April 2, 2020

In basketball, the most flexible player is often the smallest person on the team. Small robots play a similar role in manufacturing.

Gripper Rapidly Removes Plastic Parts From Eight-Cavity Mold

Jim Camillo

March 12, 2020

For any plastic-injection-molding tooling company, nothing is more important than making sure its molds allow for consistent, quick and clean demolding of just-made parts. So anything that helps the company achieve this crucial goal is worth pursuing.

Shaker Table Sorts Parts for Thermoelectric Cooling Devices

John Sprovieri

March 6, 2020

Thermoelectric coolers are great for day trips, tailgating, boating or even overnight camping trips. Instead of ice, these coolers rely on a thin, flat electronic assembly called a Peltier device.

Flexible Feeding Systems

A new generation of flexible feeders are helping manufacturers cope with high-mix assembly

Jim Camillo

March 4, 2020

Flexible feeders are great at helping manufacturers accommodate product variants on the assembly line. After the feeder presents parts to a vision-guided robot, one or more cameras take images of the parts, and vision software tells the robot which parts are pickable and which are not. The robot then retrieves the parts for kitting or assembly.

Automated System Installs Electric Vehicle Power Trains

Five Things: Electric Vehicle Assembly

John Sprovieri

February 5, 2020

Nissan has invested $305 million in its factory in Tochigi, Japan, to develop new technologies for assembling electric vehicles.

New Technology for Automatic Screwdriving

Collaborative robots are among the latest products for automatic screwdriving

John Sprovieri

February 5, 2020

Threaded fasteners are, by far, the most common method of assembling parts. According to ASSEMBLY magazine's annual Capital Equipment Spending Survey, screwdriving is performed at 58 percent of U.S. assembly plants, making it more popular than welding, pressing, adhesive bonding or riveting.

Hot-Gas Welding of Plastic Parts

A new noncontact joining method uses hot nitrogen flowing through custom-built nozzles to soften the weld area

John Sprovieri

February 4, 2020

The shop floor was hopping in mid-January at Dukane Corp.'s headquarters in St. Charles, IL, 35 miles west of Chicago. Technicians were busy assembling, tooling and testing a variety of machines, including the latest product in the company's arsenal of plastics assembly technologies: a hot-gas welding system.

Monitoring Activity During Wire Harness Assembly

New technology helps engineers gather real-time data on manual assembly processes, such as wire harness assembly.

Janos Abonyi Ph.D. Tamas Ruppert

January 14, 2020

Industry 4.0 and the digital manufacturing revolution are all about collecting - and, more importantly, acting on - data gathered from the assembly process in real time.

Sensor Optimizes Cutting-Edge Stone Processing System

Jim Camillo

January 13, 2020

Traditionally, multiple pieces of equipment have been required to process a stone slab. Separate machines that cut, drill or finish the slab surface have been used by stone-processing companies worldwide for centuries.

Roller Forming for Cylindrical Assemblies

The Roller Forming Process Forms a Curl or Lip on the Edge or Rim of a Hollow, Cylindrical Part

John Sprovieri

January 8, 2020

There are many ways to crimp or flare a lip on a cylindrical part. For example, it can be done with a press or an orbital forming machine. However, the problem with those processes, particularly the former, is that they require a good deal of force.