Automating Spray Painting with AkzoNobel
A close look at the Mimic painting set up that was created in conjunction with SE Automation, AkzoNobel and Nordbo Robotics
Case
Brandt Industrilakering has been a market leader in the Danish powder coating market for over 50 years. Part of the reason for their success is their willingness to adopt new innovations that increase the value for their customers. Our partner G.A. Hansen was crucial in the development of a touch up system that automated this process.
As an industry innovator Brandt had already partially automated their automation process with the help of G.A.Hansen. Although the solution could achieve almost total coverage on the items it was still necessary for the process to include a touch up step. This step was performed by a dedicated powder spraying technician in a full environmental suit, whose job it was to manually ensure that each item was fully coated prior to being heat treated.
Were this a production facility that only dealt with a limited range of products this wouldn’t be an issue but as a powder coating sub contractor Brandt treats an exhaustive range of products of varying shapes and sizes. Finding workers that were willing to take on this physically demanding and uncomfortable job was only getting harder and harder. Automation was a priority but doing it to meet the demands of this high mix low volume workshop was difficult.
Through the implementation of a Mimic Kit with a Universal Robots cobot, G.A.Hansen was able to develop a workflow where the technician would only need to complete the spraying on a single unit. The robot would then be able to replicate exactly the movements that had been demonstrated for it. Through this Brandt achieved several benefits:
With enough experience it should be possible for a worker to actually teach the robot to complete the task without having to don the environmental suit and physically spray the powder. As it stands now the training of the robot has given the technicians at Brandt the satisfaction in knowing that their skills are a necessary part of the process and that the Mimic enabled robot is simply another tool which helps them achieve their job.
Companies with experience in this area know that automating processes is often a multi step process. Although Brandt was successful in implementing an automated powder coating process which delivered 90% coverage on their products, they still required the human touch when it came to completing touch ups.
To solve this required the joint efforts of both G.A.Hansen and Nordbo Robotics. G.A.Hansen brought their expertise in painting while Nordbo Robotics could deliver the fast programming of complex human movements.
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