AXIOME INSTALLS A MILLING SOLUTION BASED ON AN ABB ROBOT

In order to increase productivity by reducing drudgery and meeting European standards, AXIOME has developed a milling solution based on the use of an ABB IRB 6640 robot with an external axis that drives a large turntable.

Greau Polyester Company, which employs around twenty people, is specialized in the manufacture of polyester composite products such as basins, washbasins, parts for the nautical industry or construction.

Like all the actors in this sector; this company must respond to the evolution of the standards of exposure of operators to volatile organic compounds (Directive 2002/3/EC of the European Parliament, Decree V300811, etc...) as well as the difficulty of manual cutting work. The solution chosen was to evolve towards robotic machines.

For this project, a validation phase confirmed that robotic production was four times faster than manual production. In addition, the parts are repeatable and are all produced in the same way, which facilitates assembly in the next step.

At the environmental level, dust is confined within the enclosure and, by this way, operators are less exposed.

The ABB robot was chosen for its large operating range (2.80 m) combined with its load capacity to support the milling spindle and cutting forces. In the same way, since the external axis is integrated into the IRC5 control cabinet, the whole system is controlled in a homogeneous way.

The machine designed by AXIOME facilitates the loading and unloading of parts while allowing a quick production changeover. Finally, the automatic milling cutter change allows the cutting of a very wide range of parts.

Le Répertoire de la Machine-Outil, 14/11/12