Omron focuses on robotic automation at PPMA
At PPMA 2015, Omron and its solution partners Applied Automation and HepcoMotion showed how advanced automation systems coupled with robotics technologies can deliver real return on investment.
The modern packaging industry is becoming characterised by shorter production runs with higher numbers of product variants, resulting in lines handling more products than ever before and needing fast changeover times from one product to another. Throughput, quality, availability and the flexibility to work with different product variants or different pack sizes, without the traditional line changeover time, are all factors that impact on the bottom line.
Robots have an important role to play, delivering the machine flexibility that packaging companies require, while boosting productivity through high speed operation, and improving availability. At the same time, packaging machine end users have a clear focus on the need for robot ease of use, a fast return on investment and a low total cost of ownership.
There are many robotic solutions on the market, all promising to deliver very similar benefits. That can make it a challenge for the packaging machine builder to distinguish between them. However, there are some very real distinguishing factors that can make the difference between a system which meets all the goals of the end user and offers the maximum return for the machine builder – both in terms of ease of integration of the robotic system and ongoing support.
Omron has addressed these requirements with a full range of SCARA and delta robots, along with automation systems that enable the simple construction of high performance Cartesian robots. In particular, these products offer ease of integration, enhanced flexibility, programming simplicity and the highest levels of functionality.
The strength of Omron’s offering is built around the Sysmac platform, which encompasses machine control, drives, servos, HMIs and vision technology in addition to robots, with the whole suite of products networked over a single protocol – EtherCAT – and programmed, simulated, configured and tested through a single software package. This holds the key to ease of integration for machine builders, and significantly reduces machine design timescales. It also ensures ease of support.
At the same time, the industry leading performance of all of these individual products delivers real performance benefits for end users, helping to guarantee the boost in productivity, flexibility and availability that will maximise profit and return on investment.
Of particular importance is the integration with vision technology, which enables the robots to operate even more efficiently, more accurately and more effectively. Robot integrated vision delivers greater capability for high speed, high accuracy pick and place operations, giving robots the sight they need to detect the positions of multiple workpieces in the field of view in very short periods of time.
Robots with vision technology enable packaging end users to work with many different package sizes and forms without the need for reprogramming. It provides the ability to run multiple processes on the same packaging line, and to work with complex shapes and/or delicate products.
All of this addresses requirements for increased flexibility, higher speeds, greater productivity and reduced complexity, and is demonstrated by some of the robot applications displayed at the PPMA show by some of Omron’s premier partner companies.
Visit the Omron website for more information.
See all stories for Omron
Previous page PPMA Show 2015 report Next page
