Paper mill upgrades to robot with remote diagnostics
When an increasingly unreliable label applicator robot at a Flintshire-based paper mill led to a growing number of breakdowns, the company knew it was time to seek a replacement. While the specification for a replacement was presented to a number of robot companies, it was KUKA who were best able to match the brief in terms of capabilities and cost.
Use of robotics has increased in recent years, in a wave of industrial innovation as part of a fundamental drive to maximize productivity. But any breakdown can mean serious problems, as the line automation engineer at the Flintshire paper mill explains: “If we experience an eight hour downtime event, that can lead to the mill stopping production.” In this case, the deteriorating reliability of the robot was clearly critical and warranted the purchase of a replacement.
Commenting on the choice of the KUKA robot, the project engineer responsible at KUKA says: “Being cost competitive was an obvious key factor in winning the contract, but we also offered better overall value for the customer together with excellent customer support throughout the project.”
According to KUKA’s project engineer, the most challenging part of the project was calculating the arc the robot had to take relative to the roll diameter and width sent over the bus by the PLC.
The task of programming, installing and commissioning the new robot was given to independent automation company and KUKA partner Optima Control Solutions. Optima had to integrate the new robot with the existing machine control system. The automation engineer at the mill comments: “We had complete confidence in the company’s expertise – KUKA recommended Optima as the best system integrator out there. Their joint offering was within our budget and with their excellent reputation we had no doubts that they would do a great job.”
Included within the robot control system was a 3G router solution, making remote diagnostics possible via LogMeIn – a remote control desktop website.
Visit the Optima Control Solutions website for more information.
