Machine Tending

The machining industry – including capital equipment like lathes, mills, machining centers, forges, presses, and injection molding machines – has been the backbone of manufacturing. It is unlikely that any job shops or manufacturing plants have not invested in this technology.

Automating these machines gives manufacturers clear advantages in terms of utilization, secondary processes, labor resources, and productivity. Anytime a machine sits idle or an operator isn’t available to support it, that equates to lost productivity and profits.

FANUC's robotic machine tending solutions and software make it easy to connect your equipment and improve throughput and overall equipment effectiveness for most machine tending applications.

Increase Task Throughput

Robots are invaluable when it comes to supporting injection molding machines. From part removal, to sprue cutting, degating, labeling, laser marking, and adding inserts, they increase throughput across a varied range of tasks while negating the risk of damage.

Flexibility

Compared to fixed automation solutions, using robotic CNC machining and manufacturing allows for increased flexibility. Rather than being dedicated to a single process or machine, the robots can be quickly and easily repurposed for other tasks as needed. This helps to future-proof your investment and keep your operation agile.

Throughput

Robots offer maximized speed, reliability, and performance, which leads to increased throughput. Automating these tasks also increases the quality of your output thanks to precise, consistent movements that result in reduced variation in finished products.

System Performance

Machine tending robots are able to take on many of the tasks that would normally require operator intervention, such as loading and unloading parts, transferring finished parts to post-processing, and material handling. Robots for machine tending can service different machines and perform secondary operations which helps to increase system uptime and overall productivity.

By automating these processes, machines can run for longer periods of time without needing to stop in order to allow an operator to intervene.

Operation Costs

The cost of operating a robotic machine tending solution is generally lower than the cost of using labor to perform the same tasks. Robots don’t require breaks, vacations, or health insurance, and they can work around the clock if necessary.

Automating industrial robot applications like unloading and loading also cuts back on costly errors thanks to consistent precision and repeatability.

Employee Safety and Satisfaction

By automating the strenuous and repetitive tasks of loading and unloading with CNC machining automation operations, you can reduce the risk of employee injury, making their jobs much safer. When your employees don't have to manually handle these arduous duties and can instead focus on higher value tasks, they will be more satisfied with their workplace, thereby decreasing turnover and limiting your need to specifically hire manual laborers in those positions.

The implementation of automated machine tending tools can help create an agile manufacturing environment because the machines can be quickly reprogrammed to handle different parts, and they do not require skilled labor to operate. As a result, machine tending industrial robots can help manufacturing facilities rapidly respond to changes in customer demand.

In order to fully reap the benefits of an agile manufacturing approach, it is important to implement other supporting technologies and processes. An agile manufacturing approach will often make use of lean principles, just-in-time production, and flexible manufacturing systems. When these technologies and processes are combined with CNC machining, they can help create a truly agile manufacturing environment.

What is Agile Manufacturing?

An agile manufacturing environment is one that is able to rapidly respond to changes in customer demand. In order to be truly agile, a manufacturing facility must have the ability to quickly adapt its production process to meet changing customer needs. This might mean rapidly designing and prototyping new products, or rapidly reconfiguring existing production lines to produce different types of parts.