Case Study – Depalletizing and Automated Material Handling

Our Client

Our customer is a global leader in the manufacture of cutting edges, wear parts, and fabrications, and is the premier commercial heat treat services provider in North America. The company planned to improve the efficiency and quality of the manufacturing process for the 3000+ cutting edges produced every day for use on road grade machines through 3D Vision-Guided Robotic De-palletizing using Unblink3D software solution.

The Challenge

The specific process that needed improvement was focused on the process of removing the cutting edges from pallets to place them on paint hooks which were then lifted on to an overhead gantry using a hydraulic lift table. This was time consuming, labor intensive, dangerous and introduced human error into the process. 

Unblink3D software solution could identify 80 different sized parts, the longest of which was 72”, and position these correctly on the paint hooks with an accuracy tolerance of 1mm to ensure the parts would be correctly dipped into the paint tank.

The Solution – 3D Vision-Guided Robotic De-palletizing Material Handling

Unblink3D software solution combined with 3D cameras, robot to process the depalletizing and hooking  through a two-stage process.

The 3D structured light camera is used to locate each part on the pallet (parts are placed in stacks on the pallet) so that it can be picked up and transferred to the scanning table. Locating the part also relies on Unblink3D industrial engine and communication software comXtream to carry out the calculations required to provide a set of coordinates in the robot’s world coordinate system to ensure that the robot could drive its picking magnets directly to the part. Offsets were added to specific parts to ensure optimal <magnet placement.

Once aligned the software is then able to identify the location of all of the holes on the part surface (3-12 depending on the part), in addition to the length, width and thickness of the part itself enabling the robot to then place the part accurately on the paint hook.

The Results

Under the control of Unblink3D software, the solution is scalable from a few hundred to thousands of parts every day. It fully automated the process and improved its speed and efficiency, delivering exactly what our client required.