Retrofit solution for an existing assembly line

Background & objectives

Wild & Küpfer is one of the leading Swiss companies in plastic injection molding technology. For over 20 years the family-owned company has been one of our clients and relies on automation solutions from Robotec.

Our oldest system at Wild & Küpfer dates from 2002: in its first configuration it was used to insert threaded inserts with a robot and weld them using ultrasound. In 2008 it was expanded with two robots. The feeding of the individual parts was carried out via a vibrating spiral feeder with a vision system. The system was controlled at a higher level by a Siemens S7-300 PLC and a TP177A HMI.

Since the end customer of the parts and owner of the system wants to continue operating it at Wild & Küpfer for another five to ten years, Robotec was commissioned to carry out a comprehensive retrofit.

The solution

In our Retrofit solution we replaced all three robots with new FANUC Industrial robots LRM200iD units with modern controllers. We also replaced the previous Cognex camera systems. Now six Cognex IS3801 cameras with RGB lighting are in use. In addition, we migrated the existing software to a new Siemens PLC (S7-1515-2PN) with TP700 Comfort HMI.

To keep production downtime as low as possible during the upgrade to the new components, we implemented the retrofit solution in four stages. This made the work easy to plan and allowed it to be carried out in harmony with ongoing production.

This brings our system back to the latest operational safety standards and makes it ready for the next ten years. A prime example of quality and sustainability!

Time for your project?

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