MultiMove Controls Robots in the Swedish Wild West
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2008-03-16 - Saving operator time and significantly speeding up the production capacity were two main reasons for Brannehylte Storage Systems to choose ABB's IRC5 MultiMove robot controller.
Brannehylte Storage Systems is one of three divisions that make up Brannehylte Handels AB. Located in the middle of the proverbial fairy-talish forests in the Swedish region of Smaland, Brannehylte Handels has more than half a century of tradition when it comes to materials handling.
The company was started by Bengt Erlandsson, who is more commonly known as "Big Bengt", the father of High Chaparral - the renowned amusement park inspired by the US Wild West history. Brannehylte Handels is placed just at the High Chaparral entrance, and it is easy to get the almost palpable feeling of an unbridled entrepreneurial spirit in the air once you have entered into the plant.
However, High Chaparral is not the only offspring of Big Bengt's. Today, his son, Kent Erlandsson is the head of Brannehylte Handels AB. Lately, the company has seen a large influx of orders when it comes to beams and legs for storage sections. The number of orders has made it necessary to increase the production capacity, and one way to address this has been the use of robots.
"ABB came up with a proposal that was far better than any competitor was able to offer. It meant better performance but also a higher capacity and less operators involved," says Kent Erlandsson.
Brannehylte Handels has had ABB robots before, but this time robot installation company ARHO AB had something special in mind that would particularly suit the needs of Brannehylte Handels.
"Together with the customer, we have designed a tailor-made concept that really utilizes the possibilities of the Multi Move functionality of ABB's IRC5 robot controller," says Goran Funke, Sales Responsible, ARHO.
IRC5 is ABB's fifth generation robot controller. It encompasses a modular concept with the FlexPendant - an ergonomically designed portable interface unit, and the MultiMove function - enabling a fully synchronous control of up to four robots.
"The IRC5 MultiMove function to control multiple robots allows the reduction of costs and improvement of quality, while raising productivity and expanding robot applications," Funke says. "MultiMove enables unprecedented applications thanks to the accurate coordination of complex motion patterns. It is also easier to control all the robots in the cell by using the IRC5 Multi Move functionality."
"This customized solution saves the time of 2.5 operators, which is most beneficial to us" Erlandsson says. "Thanks to the system's speedy cycle time from start to finish of about 35 to 40 seconds, we can produce almost 2,000 articles per two shifts each day."
In the particular case of Brannehylte Handels, the IRC5 MultiMove function controls four robots - two IRB 1600 for arc welding and handling, and two IRB 6600 for handling.
"There are also two rotating external axis, controlled and synchronized with an electrical link-motor functionality in the software," says Peter Eliasson, ABB Sales Responsible for Metal Fabrication in the Swedish market. "Moreover, there are two slide motions where we utilize two MU motors. The integrator ARHO has also built carriages to enhance the functionality."
Eliasson points out that the FlexPendant has a user-friendly interface with many icons and pictures instead of just text.
"It is colour pendant and it is the only one available on the market that can be used as easily by both left and right-handed people," he says. "It has a touch screen with only eight hard buttons on the pendant. Four are dedicated to controlling the program, and the other four can program the functionality you would like to have."
Another benefit for customers is the possibility of programming offline with the Robot Studio feature. Robot Studio helps avoiding pre-planning in terms of what the robots exactly are going to do and all their motions.
"In Robot Studio, you have the power packs for arc welding and also the built-in functionality for the Multi Move programming," Eliasson says. "You can also use Robot Studio to simulate the system before building it. All to make sure that you will be able to get the most mileage out of the system according to your plans."
However, the welds at Brannehylte Handels are comparatively small and simple, so in this case there was not a large advantage to have Robot Studio programming.
In general, ABB has sold the IRC5 with Multi Move to many clients within the automotive industry.
"We are ten years ahead of our competitors in terms of the functionality we can offer in our Multi Move system," Eliasson concludes.
