Technological developments have led to increased
automation throughout most production stages of the
sanitaryware industry, from casting to glazing, to piece handling. Among the first to introduce robotics into the sector, back in the nineties, SACMI today is pleased to present
RobotLoad, a technology which can be applied to those operations which even today, despite widespread adoption of automatic systems, are still carried out
entirely or mainly by hand.
Developed at SACMI’s R&D centre in Imola, RobotLoad is the automatic solution for
loading and unloading sanitaryware in and out of kiln cars. Still today these operations are usually performed manually by workers who have to handle heavy pieces at high temperatures with all the consequent risks for the
health &
safety of the operator and for the
quality of the product, that can be damaged due to frequent manual handling.
RobotLoad therefore introduces
smart automation of all kiln car loading and unloading operations using
newly designed technologies and tools. Thanks to special vision systems, RobotLoad is able to recognize the
positions and models of the sanitaryware pieces to be handled, thus optimizing operations. The actual piece handling operation is then carried out by a
universal “suction” tool, installed on the side of the robot, which is extremely versatile and suitable for handling many different piece models and sizes.
A further activity developed by SACMI’s R&D centre involves the
handling of supports (ceramic plates and expanded polystyrene sheets). Automatic control has been applied to these operations too, whilst maintaining versatility according to the
type of kiln (tunnel, shuttle, roller) to be loaded/unloaded and with
personalized solutions based on the specific set-up of the customer’s production plant.
In addition to the mechanical parts and tools, RobotLoad is also provided with innovative software, the result of years of research by the SACMI Sanitaryware team, such as “
Smart Positioning Software” and the “
Smart Vision System”. The first of these serves to optimize the positioning of
pieces on board the car, which was previously carried out only by hand and was reliant on operator experience. The second system is used for on-board control of the position of the sanitaryware pieces and their model so as to
optimize the robot missions for unloading and pick-up under different conditions.
READ THE FULL ARTICLE