There's nothing quite like a multistation automated assembly system. Watching robots, actuators and indexers go about their carefully choreographed routines with little or no human intervention can seem nothing short of miraculous.
The one constant thing about technology is that it is constantly changing and evolving. Don’t think so? In that case, ask the people who rushed out to buy the latest iteration of a smartphone, but then find themselves standing in line waiting to purchase the latest new-and-improved version just six months later.
Designing and building a multistation automated assembly system takes time. A simple project might take 12 to 14 weeks. A complex one could take three or four times that long.
Midwestern automotive supplier uses servo-driven presses to install sleeves, bearings and plugs in transmissions on an automated assembly line. Precision and data collection are key benefits of the system.
This eight-station automatic system produces a hinge in less than 10 seconds.
June 3, 2013
Manufacturing engineers have two options for obtaining an automated assembly system. They can get each component—an automatic screwdriver, a rotary indexing dial, a gripper—from individual suppliers and integrate the parts themselves. Or, they can ask one supplier to deliver a turnkey machine.
NORDLINGEN, Germany—Six-axis robots and a rotary indexing table are the heart of a high-speed automated assembly system that produces 200,000 automotive sensors daily.