“I was able to experiment with various concepts, complete with accurate reads on reach, speed, distance, conveyor location, and so on, allowing us to optimize the layout and robot paths to achieve the best cycle times. “The simulations that can be created in RobotStudio are incredibly realistic, virtually identical to how a concept and its various components will perform on the factory floor,” he said.
PSA project engineer Chris Lesnefsky applied ABB’s RobotStudio simulation software to the problem, with no comparable end-use applications on which to base any solution. “We had no preconceived notion of what form an automated module-matching system would take, or if it was even possible,” he said. Menta and his team turned to Pennsylvania-based Production Systems Automation (PSA) to explore potential customised automation solutions. “We had to take a step back, evaluate the entire process from beginning to end and find out where the breakdowns were occurring.”Ī partial automation of the process, with a focus on the front-end grading system for incoming modules, did not address the bottleneck of the matching operation either in terms of the speed of order fulfilment or the quality of the resulting battery-packs. “Customers were not having an acceptable experience with the product, orders were taking too long to fill and there were too many returns,” said Michael Menta, Dorman’s vice president of engineering.
Previously, operators might have had to attempt matches with up to 100 refurbished modules, in a painstaking manual process of trial-and-error, before finding the best fit for a specific battery-pack. With its focus on reassembling battery-packs for Toyota Prius hybrid drive vehicles, Dorman’s Sanford, NC, facility faced serious challenges in identifying the 28 different modules which, only in the right combination, will together create the optimal replacement battery. Warranty returns have fallen by 27 percent. The robotic system has cut battery build time by 66 percent, Dorman reports, which translates as a 300 per cent increase in the plant’s daily output of finished battery-packs. The agility of ABB’s RobotStudio design software in modelling automated solutions to complex manufacturing problems has been amply demonstrated by a project for US automotive battery-pack remanufacturer Dorman Products Inc., which has resulted in a single ABB robot picking product from 5,000 different storage slots. Robotic system modelled in RobotStudio and comprising a single ABB robot together with intelligent software has helped cut battery build time by 66 percent, increasing the plant’s daily output of finished battery-packs by 300 per cent.
The company needed to find a way of speeding up the process of finding and selecting the 28 correct modules to enable the optimum configuration for a reassembled battery. Automated selection of components for the remanufacture of battery packs for hybrid vehicles at US automotive battery-pack remanufacturer Dorman Products Inc.