No More Monotonous Activities How Igus Automates Production and Logistics Cost-Effectively

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igus GmbH

Wuxi InfiMotion Technology Co., Ltd.

They insert components into injection molding machines, remove the sprue or support assembly: Igus uses examples from its own company to show how monotonous tasks can be automated with low-cost automation components. Some of the solutions pay for themselves after just two months.

From energy chains weighing hundreds of pounds to plain bearings weighing just a few grams: whenever components made of high-performance plastic are required, the Cologne-based company (Germany) Igus is a sought-after address worldwide. At its headquarters in Cologne (Germany) alone, the Rhinelanders operate over 1,000 injection molding machines that produce over a billion parts every year. But the company's success is not a sure-fire success.

Igus is also facing challenges, says Alexander Mühlens, authorized signatory and Head of the Low-Cost Automation division at Igus: "Among other things, it is becoming increasingly difficult to get people interested in routine tasks, such as inserting components into injection moulding machines. We have therefore launched an initiative called 'No boring jobs', which automates monotonous activities. We are now successfully using robot solutions in over 1,500 positions in production and logistics. This allows us to continue producing successfully despite a shortage of labor and at the same time focus on training valuable employees for more demanding tasks."

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Virtually all automation solutions are more cost-effective than average. This is because Igus only uses components that can be found on RBTX.de. This is an online marketplace where the company offers more than 1,000 low-cost robots and components from over 200 well-known manufacturers, which can be easily combined according to the modular principle—always with a compatibility guarantee. The motto is: robotics for everyone, even for small and medium-sized companies with small budgets and little automation experience. "Our factory is the best proof that we trust our own low-cost products," emphasizes Mühlens.

Robots Remove Sprue on Aound 1,000 Injection Molding Machines

Igus relies on low-cost automation for injection molding machines, for example. A "boring job" here is to remove the so-called sprue from injection molded parts. After cooling, this excess material remains attached to the component. Removing the material and collecting it in a recycling container used to be tedious and laborious manual work. Igus has therefore automated it with various solutions:

• The standard sprue picker moves between the injection mold halves and grabs the sprue while the articles are ejected onto a conveyor belt.
• Another solution is sprue separation directly behind the injection molding machine. A rotating disk is positioned under the machine's discharge chute, onto which the freshly moulded components fall. A camera identifies the position of the components so that a low-cost gantry robot with a gripper can pick them up. Two brushes then remove the sprue from the article, which then falls into a box.
• In addition, downstream sprue separation also takes place. Here, the articles are collected in boxes at the injection molding machine and later separated from the sprue in a pick-and-place cell.

"With the help of these solutions, we have managed to automate sprue removal on our approximately 1,000 injection molding machines at low cost," says Mühlens. "A complete system like this, which consists exclusively of components from the RBTX marketplace, costs just under 11,700 USD, which is a fraction of the cost of a standard automation solution on the market."

Rebel Cobot Prints Components And Drills Threads

Drilling threads into rod ends made of high-performance plastic is also strenuous manual work—over 20,000 times a day. To transfer this work to machines, Igus relies on the Rebel, a compact and cost-effective cobot that the company has developed for simple automation tasks. It is made almost entirely of high-performance plastic, weighs just 18 lb and can handle loads of up to two kilograms. The cobot—which now has a license to work in the vicinity of people without a protective housing—picks up the rod ends from a rotating disc with a gripper and holds them under a tap.

The articulated arm robot is also used for marking semi-finished products on extrusion systems. Equipped with a compact, tubular inkjet printing unit on the robot hand, the Rebel can print on up to 16 cavities. It can be easily programmed using the Igus Robot Control software. The software has a virtual twin that can be used to define movement paths in just a few minutes—without any programming knowledge.

Rebel Move Transports Components Safely from A to B

Igus relies on the autonomous mobile robot Rebel Move for the provision of tools and materials at workstations, as well as transportation to production and packaging machines, for just 35,900 USD. The AMR can optionally be combined with the Rebel Cobot. With an operating time of 8 hours, a payload of 110 lb and a tensile weight of up to 220 lb, the AMR is extremely powerful. It can be set up quickly and operated easily via an intuitive app. The entire commissioning process is so easy that users can program simple jobs within 15 minutes. Integration into established IT landscapes is also no problem thanks to interfaces such as IoT, VDA 5050, REST, SAP and ERP.

Igus has developed the Rebel Move Pro for even more load capacity and higher speed. It travels at a speed of 6.6 ft per second and allows 440 lb of load capacity and 1,980 lb of tensile weight. Precise navigation using lidar technology increases safety and efficiency in logistics.

Delta Robot Supports the Assembly of E-Chains

Igus products, which are used in industries all over the world, also include energy chains. For the assembly of these e-chains, Igus has been using automatic assembly machines for several years, which connect the individual chain links. The company has installed Delta robots to feed them into the machine. They use a camera to recognize the chain links, which are pre-separated by a hopper conveyor and then separated from the sprue by a rotating disc. The delta robots pick them up and feed them to the assembly machine. Depending on the article, they achieve a cycle time of two seconds. "The price for the system, including the protective housing, is just under 52,650 USD. The return on investment is therefore usually achieved in nine months," says Mühlens.

Room Gantries Load Injection Molding Machines

There are other candidates on Igus' "no-boring jobs list". One of them is the insertion of products such as linear slides into injection molding machines. In the past, employees had to insert the products into the machine and wait for a process time of 40 seconds—hundreds of times a day. Today, this job is done by a low-cost gantry robot called "Ispel". The abbreviation stands for Igus injection molding inserter. The solution works as follows:

1. The linear slides are stored as bulk material in a container.
2. A step conveyor transports the slides onto a chute, where they land on a rotating unit that ensures separation.
3. A camera recognizes the position of the parts from a bird's eye view so that a suction gripper can pick up four parts at a time and place them in a transfer station.
4. A second gantry robot then inserts these into the injection molding machine.

The project costs for this type of gantry are usually around 25,740 USD. Alternatively, the Rebel, an articulated arm robot that inserts small spherical caps into injection molding machines at Igus, for example, is also suitable for loading work.

Solutions Must Pay for Themselves in Less than A Year

Automation at Igus is still in its infancy, but the vision is a big one: humanoid robots that will be able to move as freely as human colleagues in production in the future and use the entire infrastructure—rom the door handle to the touchscreen for machine control. An intermediate step on this path is the Rebel Move, a flat, autonomous vehicle that can, for example, piggyback and transport containers with injection molded parts. However, the solutions should always remain one thing: cost-effective and easy to operate. Alexander Mühlens: "We always aim for a return on investment of less than twelve months. Some of our solutions pay for themselves after just two months. With these prices, we make it possible for smaller companies to benefit from robotics and thus strengthen their competitiveness."

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