"We bought our first Motoman robots in 1995 and now have 32
of them in our plants; plus, we just ordered six more," said Rob Shea
One multi-process application at Lacks Industries uses two
Motoman K10S robots to apply sealant in a circular pattern around the
inside rim of individual chrome-plated wheel claddings that are located
on a palletized line.
Two four-axis Motoman S304 robots remove individual steel
wheels from part trays at the next station, orient the wheels so that
the valve stem lines up properly and then place the wheels onto the
chrome-plated wheel claddings
"We just added a similar workcell that uses six-axis
Motoman UP20 robots for sealant dispensing and four-axis SP70X robots
for palletizing/depalletizing," Shea said.
Lacks Industries also uses Motoman robots to perform other
sealant dispensing, foam-in-place gasketing and degating applications
on various automotive trim parts.
"We pushed to be able to market the Staubli robots in
the U.S. because they offered us a lot of flexibility with six robot
sizes, all with different footprints, reach and payload capabilities,"
Rodgers said.
The ability to build the CPS around the smallest robot
appropriate for the application has a positive ripple effect throughout
the entire process. Besides conserving real estate, for example,
smaller paint booths can mean shorter cycle time.
