Assembly of Injection Molded Parts with Integrated Quality Control

Initial Situation & Goals

B. Braun is one of the world's leading medical technology companies. The German company also has several locations in Switzerland and manufactures medtech products in a state-of-the-art facility in Escholzmatt, Lucerne.

Here, the existing manual assembly process of two plastic components reached its capacity limits. To increase output due to the rapidly growing demand while ensuring consistently high product quality, B. Braun decided to automate the injection molding removal with assembly into the assembly group.

Challenges included the tight space conditions and the assembly process with short cycle times, as well as its automatic monitoring. Additionally, an 18-year-old SGM legacy machine had to be seamlessly integrated into the new system concept. Always with the goal of creating an efficient, stable, and future-proof assembly process.

The Solution

Robotec developed a compact system with 6-axis and SCARA robots. At the beginning of this, there is a vibratory feeder that brings the top parts into the system. At the end of the mechanical feed, the parts are separated on both sides, pre-checked with the Vision-System and presented to the two SCARA robots.

An SGM removal robot with a vacuum gripper now retrieves the injection-molded parts from the system and places them on a pneumatically driven assembly table. After the table is equipped, the injection-molded parts are pushed to the SCARA robots.

Finally, the top part is assembled with the injection-molded part, checked, and then dropped into the finished parts box through a chute. The boxes are transported out of the system with a conveyor belt.

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