New polishing cell drives automation

Ellesco 1
Ellesco 1

With over 30 years’ experience supplying some of the world’s most prestigious, luxury, automotive manufacturers, ADV Brightware Manufacturing (ABM) has developed into the UK’s – and possibly Europe’s – largest privately-owned supplier of brightware parts for these companies.

And, while the end product is ‘highly polished’, the company is proud of its cradle to grave approach providing customers with a complete solution that starts with design, through toolmaking, pressing, roll-forming, 5-axis laser profiling , polishing, assembly and distribution.

The ability to project manage from start to finish has been a major advantage for ABM, due to its ability to keep lead-times as short as possible by controlling every aspect. This stood it in good stead, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, which did impact the business but not greatly due to the nature of its customer base.

However, what the pandemic did allow was an opportunity to re-focus efforts on expanding into other areas of manufacture, such as surgical/medical supplies and domestic fixtures and fittings.

“The manufacturing capability we have, with our in-house experience and skills base, combined with a drive for greater automation presents us with opportunities to grow the business within our traditional markets as well as exploring other areas,” says managing director, Richard Lindoe.

ABM’s commitment to meeting customer demand is highlighted by its recent investment in a 9-axis robot polishing cell from Autopulit, supplied by Ellesco. The specific project was to fulfil demand for polished side frames for a prestigious 4x4.

Each frame measured 3.5m in length and traditionally this would have been a job for manual polishing: “The customer recognised that the ideal solution would be a robot cell to deliver the consistent high quality that its customers required,” explains ABM’s automation manager, Lloyd Jackson.

“With this in mind, I visited the MACH 2018 exhibition and the Ellesco stand caught my eye as they had a small Autopulit robot cell on display. Discussing this with Ellesco it became obvious that this could be scaled up to provide the ideal solution.”

The cell development was completed with Autopulit leading discussions taking input from Ellesco and Mr Jackson, whose extensive polishing know-how completed the picture. From placing the order the timeline for delivery didn’t slip by a day even as changes were made along the way.

“I couldn’t fault the service and support provided by Autopulit and Ellesco; working with them gave me full confidence that they would deliver on their promises,” Mr Jackson recalls. “The design of the cell is straightforward – why overcomplicate if you don’t have to – but it is highly capable of the complex work that we are asking it to do, and is future proof as it can be adapted to new work when this seven-year project draws to a close.”

The cell consists of a 6-axis ABB IRB 6700 robot with a 200kg payload and 2.6m reach. This sits on an ABB IRBT 6004 track allowing the robot to traverse up to 2.7m. Parts are loaded onto a two-station interchanger capable of holding parts measuring 950mm x 4,000mm.

The robot arm has access to four AC motor driven polishing tools, with each being equipped with inverters, allowing finite control of polishing mop speed and polarity, which creates a more fluent and adaptable approach when it comes to polishing large parts.

Prior to polishing commencing the robot arm presents each polishing mop to a laser calibrating system, which calculates mop wear and automatically compensates the program to a tolerance of ±0.1mm to ensure correct pressure is applied. With the polishing mop calibrated the robot then presents it to the compound dispenser, which automatically applies one of three compounds.

The whole system is controlled by an IRC5 single controller and once programmed the control recognises which of the six side frames are loaded, so the whole process is simplified to: load part, press cycle start.

Mr Jackson adds: “The Autopulit cell has delivered significant advantages in many areas of our production including time saving, consistency and health and safety. When manually polishing it could take four hours to complete one side frame. That is now down to 14 minutes; with an additional 30 minutes of manual intervention with soft mops.

“The cell can operate 24 hours a day; it doesn’t get tired, so quality is consistent. The elimination of hard mop manual polishing also removes any risk of Hand Arm Vibration (HAV) issues for operators. We also have flexibility, so when new business opportunities present themselves, we have the resources to be able to react quickly to supply high quality, cost-competitive, aluminium and stainless steel brightware.

“The installation of the robot polishing cell at ABM is indicative of the strong relationships that we have developed with our longstanding industrial partners such as Autopulit; allowing us to quickly resolve manufacturing challenges for our customers,” says Ellesco’s managing director Guy Newton.

Ellesco www.ellesco.co.uk

ADV Brightware Manufacturing www.advbrightware.com

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Ellesco

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