Production start from zero to one hundred with HeiDetect Wheel Robot
Production start from zero to one hundred - In August 2020, four of the fully automatic HeiDetect Wheel Robot wheel testing systems from HEITEC PTS were to be put into operation at the BORBET Group's plant in Thuringia. The four wheel testing systems were to be 100% ready for production after the production break for the start of the foundry in Thuringia. The usual start-up time was not planned - from zero to one hundred was the motto! In addition, the entire production at BORBET in Thuringia was to be converted to 100% traceability of the wheel data across the entire value chain using DMC labelling.
Realisation
In order to achieve this ambitious goal, the systems had to be set up in advance at HEITEC PTS in Kuchen. They were set up and tested so that they could be put into operation under realistic conditions. As all the wheel data had already been created by BORBET employees at the manufacturing plant, it was also possible to train the employees directly on the new wheel testing systems.
After the extensive tests in Kuchen, HEITEC PTS integrated the four HeiDetect Wheel Robot systems into wheel production in Thuringia within just two weeks. While they were assembled, prepared for automatic operation and integrated into the IT system in the first week, additional training sessions were held on the now production-ready systems in the second week.
After acceptance and the start of production at the end of August, specialists from HEITEC PTS accompanied production for a further two weeks and provided the BORBET employees with advice and support. In this way, the promised technical availability was reliably guaranteed from day 1 of production. Thanks to the perfect preparation and the commitment of everyone involved, the integration was a complete success.
HEITEC PTS used the brand new HeiLaser Wheel to convert the traceability of the wheels using DMC labelling. This makes it possible to mark the wheels directly after the X-ray inspection in parallel with the cycle time and individually according to customer requirements using a 50-watt laser system. New wheel types can be created in the in-house HeiControl software in just a few minutes - the laser programmes are then automatically distributed to all systems via a database, in the same way as the X-ray inspection programmes.
Customer benefits
Thanks to the integrated industrial robot, the systems achieve a very high throughput rate and are ideally suited for inline operation in the mass production of cast aluminium wheels. This also gave BORBET the opportunity to reduce the size of its existing machine park by two systems while maintaining the same output, thus gaining valuable production space. The powerful image evaluation software of the systems and their detector with stable image quality enable an almost pseudo-error-free evaluation, allowing any casting defects to be reliably recognised and classified. In addition to the major advantage of obtaining the inspection and labelling process from a single source, the main arguments that convinced BORBET to equip all six X-ray systems in Thuringia with the HeiLaser Wheel as part of a group-wide lighthouse project were the coherent machine concept, the convenient operation and the perfectly coordinated interaction between the inspection and laser machine.
With HEITEC PTS as a partner, BORBET has taken another major step towards serialisation and digitalisation of production.
