Name of demonstration

A collaborative work cell and soLutions for flexIble artisanal manufacturing (BRILLIANT)

Main objective

BRILLIANT pursues two main objectives towards the autonomous uptake of collaborative robotics solutions by SMEs:

• Developing smart, orchestrated and reconfigurable collaborative workcells to reduce adoption barriers of collaborative solutions for SMEs. For this reason, it introduces solutions for the seamless connection of company equipment and digitisation of signals and parameters coming from legacy systems into a cloud platform based on ILVM. At the same time, it provides a stepwise procedure, with guidelines and quantifiable KPIs, for evaluating the potential of current industrial applications towards the adoption of collaborative approaches.
• Combine flexibility and dexterity of humans with the repeatability of cobots towards artisanal manufacturing 4.0. Such an ambitious goal, key to a company like Ideal-tek and many other SMEs, is made possible by providing the BRILLIANT solution with an orchestrating entity like the IM that allows defining strategies to propose task assignment to cobot(s) and automated machines (based on speed and repeatability) vs human (based on experience, flexibility and dexterity).

Short description

The BRILLIANT work cell design foresees a cobot mounted on a mobile station to easily move it through different applications. The BRILLIANT application let the operator managing production orders and controlling the current work cell status.

The BRILLIANT application exploits SUPSI’s Intervention Manager and HOLONIX’ iLiveMachine to autonomously orchestrate the collaborative work cell.

The BRILLIANT application allows managing sequences of part programs to instruct the cobot and applies interventions to deal with critical situations. It handles several parameters dealing with part numbers and station specificities.

The BRILLIANT application simplifies the workstation setup and relocation. A structured procedure and a set of dynamic parameters have been defined to deal with possible positioning errors. A laser system helps the operator in visually detect positioning errors, supporting the reset of the station position to its initial setup.

 

This demonstration has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 825196.

Owner of the demonstrator

University of Applied Science and Arts of Southern Switzeralnd, Sustainable Production System Lab

Responsible person

Phd, Donatella Corti, donatella.corti@supsi.ch

Project manager, Serena Albertario, serena.albertario@holonix.it

VC of Operations, Salvatore Alivesi, salvatore.alivesi@ideal-tek.ch

NACE

C25.7.3 - Manufacture of tools

Keywords

industrial robotics, Collaborative Robotics, Industry 4.0, SME, Smart Manufacturing.

Benefits for the users

The end-user applying the solutions proposed by BRILLIANT can develop a collaborative work cell that allowed the Ideal-tek production system to:

• produce 100% of in-quality soldered blades;
• produce 97% of in-quality cleaned and finished tweezers;
• +40% of the variability of workers’ jobs thanks to both extrinsic and intrinsic job variations to improve well-being;
• Obtain a relevant reduction of the cobot relocation time in other work stations.

Innovation

Ideal-tek obtained a smart-work cell that  take advantage of both machines and human capabilities and ensure a considerable improvement to the agility of the manufacturing system. The cobot can be applied to different part numbers and it can be relocated in different work stations. The BRILLIANT app allows to autonomously orchestrating the collaborative work cell and managing sequences of part programs to instruct the cobot. It also applies interventions to deal with critical situations. It handles several parameters dealing with part numbers and station specificities.

Risks and limitations

The solution has to be configured and integrated depending on the production system characteristics and requirements.

Technology readiness level

7 - System model in operational environment

Sectors of application

Labour intensive manufacturing, The target end-users of the BRILLIANT solutions are all the companies that have labour intensive, repetitive and intensive tasks and aim to increase process performances and at the same time improve wellbeing of their workers. In particular, SMEs often struggle to keep the pace with the digital and technology evolution. The traditional approach to automation isn’t much of a help for SME’s case. As a matter of fact, traditional automation relies on rigid programming made by experts, most of the time external to the manufacturing company, that perfectly optimize lines dedicated to a fixed production – a car, a fridge – for a consistent time span. Transposing this approach to SMEs, even employing cobots, is simply going to fail, for their industrial needs are substantially different..

Hardware / Software

Hardware:

Universal Robot UR10

FAE Box

Software:

BRILLIANT Intervention Manager

iLiveMachine