In the flexible manufacturing plant shown, transmission shafts and similar components are manufactured fully automatically.
The fully automated operation requires only a small number of personnel, such as a plant operator in the control room, maintenance and repair personnel, a troubleshooting service, and the setup personnel.
Processes at the flexible manufacturing facility are: Production control, tool supply, raw part transport, workpiece processing in stages and finished part transport.
The transport of tools, of raw parts, of partially finished parts and of finished parts is carried out in an interlocking transport system.
The jointed-arm robot places the tools taken from the tool store on the floor-bound transport system.
An articulated-arm robot loads the tool magazine of the machine tool.
The gantry robot inserts the blank taken from the blank pallet into the machine tool.
The automated machine tool with CNC control processes the workpiece.
The finished part is produced from the blank in several successive production steps.
The gantry robot places the workpiece produced in the machine tool onto the finished part pallet.
The pallet transport system transports the unmachined parts and partially machined workpieces to the final production stage.
The forklift truck feeds the unmachined parts to the pallet transport system and removes the finished parts.