Up to four tires in one go – robots instead of automation cells
Declining numbers of skilled workers, physical relief for employees and the enormous increase in cost pressure in tire production: these are forcing manufacturers to reorganize their processes more and more frequently.
SAR is presenting a new generation of automation with robots at the Tire Technology Expo in Hanover. The requirements of tire manufacturers are high.
On the one hand, costs and space requirements should be minimized, while on the other, the production structure should be flexible.
Sustainability in procurement, installation and operation should also be optimized.
The highest quality, maximum system availability and the scalability of the systems continue to form the defined framework conditions for development.
Making the good even better
SAR’s latest project deals with the loading of transport trolleys with tire blanks, the so-called “green tires”.
SAR was able to draw on many years of experience in tire automation to further develop the process – from handling the tire blanks to autonomous loading of the finished product.
There are already numerous SAR solutions worldwide for a wide variety of tire manufacturers that enable one or two tires to be handled, sprayed, glued or labeled in parallel.
This system was developed by SAR in Dingolfing back in 2014 and has since established itself as the standard.
Linear solutions did not achieve the desired success here due to their limited freedom of movement.
New project for tire production
For the latest development, the existing flexibility and mobility of the robot arm was retained.
However, in order to increase the required throughput and save space at the same time, SAR has delved deep into the robot’s bag of tricks: “Heavy Metal” is the approach that ultimately prevailed after many simulations and process studies.
An industrial robot with an impressive payload of 800 kilograms and many other advantages is used: the space requirement is reduced by almost 50% compared to other robot approaches, the comparable energy consumption is reduced and the expensive compressed air consumption is reduced as far as possible through the use of electrical components.
Maximum flexibility brings order to chaos
The still soft blanks are transported from the “chaotic production” via a conveyor belt.
A camera system recognizes the tires and transmits the predefined data to the gripper.
This adjusts the gripper pressure to the current tire diameter with millimetre precision.
Up to four tire blanks can now be picked up simultaneously with the multi-gripper and placed as a complete layer in the transport trolleys provided.
Thanks to the flexibility of the robot axes and the flexible gripper design, the transport trolleys can be positioned very close to and on different sides of the robot.
This saves additional space in intralogistics and is also absolutely safe for the worker.
With 7 tons of steel, sophisticated process engineering and the most sensitive control technology, SAR has succeeded in developing a cost-efficient and sustainable process handling system for tire production.
For further information, please contact us at smb@sar.biz
