Modular, flexible robotics in machining?

[mkd]

in three years, which method will get you farther ahead?

1. FMS. (huge investment easy integration)

2. Robot fixture loader on existing machines.(every setup will be 2x harder.)

3. 2 man night shift?

 

i'm thinking #3 is more a natural progression.

 

you could start investing in tombstones and manually cherry pick them=poor boy FMS. This would help any JIT customers.

 

fun subject.

[cincy k]

You definitely know your work flow best! I guess it comes down to does it cost less to make a couple extra manual fixtures or integrate a robot with pnuematic or hydraulic fixtures... It seems the easy answer is a couple extra fixtures but maybe further digging will tell you otherwise. Use the modular Schunk tombstones and make fixtures to fit the "standard" tombstone. This way you're just investing in the "top tooling" only.

 

I'd look at your work flow like this. The small jobs you're currently running, if it's a 10 pc run, can one part be proven out during the day and the other 9 be run at night. Do ALL your first articles during the day and then your quantity work at night along with your long running jobs. This is where a large tool matrix is needed. Leave all your tooling setup for each individual part you need to run. Make just enough fixtures to get you max unattended time at night. Maybe that would work maybe not based on your part mix. 

 

I'm sure you have but put all this in a spread sheet. Give the risks of multiple integrations a risk value, say "8", and see if it makes sense ROI wise. If there's something that could go wrong such as leaky hydraulics, crappy vision system, wrong stock orientation, etc. give it a realistic value Then give a well known integrated system (MMC) a risk value of say "2" and compare the two dollar for dollar. What gives you the best ROI? If the FMS only runs for 6-8 hours each night does it still give you a better ROI than the robotic solution? Maybe it gives you more peace of mind and just some more freedom than you currently have. At least that way you can see it all typed up and printed out, maybe makes you look at the numbers and risk involved a bit more.

 

It would be interesting to see what that spreadsheet looks like...

 

The Tonytn36 guy on PM seems to put everything in a spreadsheet and then shares it with a few trusted colleagues to give him a reality check. Maybe you do the same with your programmer. Just hand it to him, no instruction and get feedback. 

[Bob W.]

in three years, which method will get you farther ahead?

1. FMS. (huge investment easy integration)

2. Robot fixture loader on existing machines.(every setup will be 2x harder.)

3. 2 man night shift?

 

i'm thinking #3 is more a natural progression.

 

you could start investing in tombstones and manually cherry pick them=poor boy FMS. This would help any JIT customers.

 

fun subject.

 

It is tough to know what would be better in the long run.  Labor is by far the most expensive component of running a shop.  In my shop the cost of the employees was 2X the cost of the machines and the employees screwed up far more often than the machines did.  I had experienced guys for the most part and parts were getting loaded backwards in vises, wrong material was getting loaded on tombstones, etc...  With four employees it seemed that each made a major mistake at least once a week, and it fell on me to clean it up and fix it and it made my life miserable due to the late nights.  I'm in the shop fixing their mistakes and they are home spending time with their families, which is what I would rather have been doing.  Needless to say I grew tired of that and they are now all gone, except one high school kid who is a real bright spot in the shop.  Very talented kid but he will be heading off to engineering school soon.

 

I guess that is at the root of my interest in robotics.  They don't complain, they don't call in sick when you need them most, they don't get distracted by a text message...  They just load parts until there are no more parts to load.  Given that my overhead is now $20k per month less than it was a few weeks ago I'm looking to push that savings into technology to make things more efficient and bulletproof.  It is in my nature to leave no stone un-turned so I'm looking at all aspects.  I know I do need employees, that is very clear, I just want to minimize the number of them.  Running a second shift will never happen here because I barely had a life with a single shift.  I don't know how the bigger shops do it to be honest.  They must be running a 20% scrap rate while operating in low gear...

 

Anyways, I feel that the cell is the easier path to take but the robots have more upside and lower operating costs long term.  It all boils down to a simple task.  Can a small robot such as the LR Mate be made to reliably load parts into fixtures in a manner that makes it flexible and quick to change over from job to job.  Everything else is easy if that can be done well.

[mkd]

gcode works with machinists that find potential problems and fix them before they become problems.

 

and i have had noobs working under me. I had much more trouble with mediocre  "experienced" guys than recent college grads with zero experience.

they all made mistakes but it was rare. Iraq vet did very well also.

 had this experienced guy crash a trunnion while manually jogging. That was his last day.

[Bob W.]

gcode works with machinists that find potential problems and fix them before they become problems.

 

and i have had noobs working under me. I had much more trouble with mediocre  "experienced" guys than recent college grads with zero experience.

they all made mistakes but it was rare. Iraq vet did very well also.

 had this experienced guy crash a trunnion while manually jogging. That was his last day.

Yeah, the high school kid started at zero and I have taught him everything.  At 17 he was programming 5-axis (3+2) parts on the Makino and getting it to 95%.  He is a sharp cookie and I see the value in starting from zero for sure.

[Newbeeee™]

+1 for Tonytn36 guy on PM.

He's a real nice guy - email him introducing yourself and he's great to talk with. His only stipulation is it doesn't get posted on the net where he works.

 

Anyway Bob, I did a bit of looking for you today

I was at a dealers PDI ing the new Feelers we're getting next week and they had a Quaser 5AX with a robot loading it.

It was the same system as they're running here - http://haltercncautomation.com/rb/quaser/

What I like about it was the simplicity of the 'fixturing' for holding the raw billets - laser cut flat sheet. Simple, cheap, and easy to store (as it's flat!).

In the UK it's marketed by Fastems.

Maybe of interest?

[Newbeeee™]

It is tough to know what would be better in the long run.  Labor is by far the most expensive component of running a shop.  In my shop the cost of the employees was 2X the cost of the machines and the employees screwed up far more often than the machines did.  I had experienced guys for the most part and parts were getting loaded backwards in vises, wrong material was getting loaded on tombstones, etc...  With four employees it seemed that each made a major mistake at least once a week, and it fell on me to clean it up and fix it and it made my life miserable due to the late nights.  I'm in the shop fixing their mistakes and they are home spending time with their families, which is what I would rather have been doing.  Needless to say I grew tired of that and they are now all gone, except one high school kid who is a real bright spot in the shop.  Very talented kid but he will be heading off to engineering school soon.

 

I guess that is at the root of my interest in robotics.  They don't complain, they don't call in sick when you need them most, they don't get distracted by a text message...  They just load parts until there are no more parts to load.  Given that my overhead is now $20k per month less than it was a few weeks ago I'm looking to push that savings into technology to make things more efficient and bulletproof.  It is in my nature to leave no stone un-turned so I'm looking at all aspects.  I know I do need employees, that is very clear, I just want to minimize the number of them.  Running a second shift will never happen here because I barely had a life with a single shift.  I don't know how the bigger shops do it to be honest.  They must be running a 20% scrap rate while operating in low gear...

 

Anyways, I feel that the cell is the easier path to take but the robots have more upside and lower operating costs long term.  It all boils down to a simple task.  Can a small robot such as the LR Mate be made to reliably load parts into fixtures in a manner that makes it flexible and quick to change over from job to job.  Everything else is easy if that can be done well.

Work's easy it's the people

 

The only thing i'll add to this ref people, is when we were a small shop (2x people and 4xVMC's and 1x CNC Lathe), we only had a limited amount of work from our Customers. They always saw us as a risk incase someone got hit by a bus.

As soon as we grabbed the unit next door, added 3 people and got some more machines (7xVMC's and 2x CNC Lathes + a Prototrak lathe and mill), they flooded us with work.

It's a perception thing.

 

And one other thing - as you are your business, if you get financed up with technology and monthly repayments, have a plan just incase you get ill, or hit by a bus...

[Newbeeee™]

Bob,

I saw this advertised in a magazine today

http://www.hydrafeed.co.uk/robojob/

[Colin Gilchrist]

It seems with the workflow he typically have we will have one big project and numerous smaller projects.  A FMS would definitely make us more efficient throughout the day due to projects set up and how quickly we could change over but I think we would struggle to get more than 10-12 hours per day out of it without me standing in front of it loading parts well into the evening.  As it stands, my current A51nx with the rotary couldn't be integrated into the FMS and retain the 5-axis capability unless I was to do it manually, which wouldn't be worth it.  My goal in these posts is to get comments like this that make me sit back and think and see what might go wrong, what the challenges might be, and what I might be missing.  I am still open to anything and I have the FMS quote on my desk next to the LR Mate quote.  Decisions decisions...  Thanks for the input, I do appreciate it.

 

Hi Bob,

 

Have you looked into Fastems? They build independent Cell systems, and hook up to pretty much any machine. Most systems are customized for you, so I would be surprised if they couldn't find a way to hook up to your machine, and still retain the 5X capability. I have seen a system hooked up successfully to three different machines. One was a large Okuma horizontal, another was a Makino, and the third was a Kitamura. Fastems designed the system to be modular and hook up to each machine. The cell controller schedules the programs, and shuttles the work in/out of the system. You've already got the universal Tool List, where every tool is a unique assembly. That is 90% of the battle in implementing a successful cell system. Add in a little bit of probing, and maybe a vision system with 2D barcodes, and the whole system just keeps running.