SCARA robots automate medical syringe manufacturing

When a large medical device original equipment manufacturer (OEM) needed to automate coating plastic syringes for medical diagnostics, including a COVID-19 application, it turned to NuTec Tooling Systems.

NuTec employed four Epson G6 Cleanroom SCARA robots into its syringe coating machine. The automated process gave the plastic syringe a glass-like finish and enabled feasible mass production. Ease of use and application versatility within the Epson RC+ development environment, plus an ISO-3 rating and compliance with cleanroom standards, makes the robots ideal for this project.

Epson America Inc.
https://www.epson.com/scara-robots

NuTec Tooling Systems
https://nuteccustomautomation.com

Precision Drive Systems’ 25th anniversary

A global provider of precision motor spindle support and repair based near Charlotte, North Carolina, Precision Drive Systems (PDS) celebrates 25 years in business.

Founded in 1996 as the exclusive North American sales and service center of Giordano Colombo spindles, PDS serves U.S. customers from its service center in Bessemer City; European customers from its repair facility in Lohne, Germany; and has technical service partners worldwide.

“Over our 25-year history, our talented team of engineers and technicians has collectively saved our customers millions of dollars with spindle-root-cause failure reports, spindle repairs, and rebuilds,” says PDS CEO Allen Turk.

Precision Drive Systems
https://www.spindlerepair.com

Reliable, intelligent sensors are the backbone of predictive maintenance. By capturing critical performance data – changes in temperature, vibrations, position, pressure – manufacturers gain a better understanding about the condition of their machines, reducing potential risk. Real-time information allows them to see trends and quickly react to avoid failures that could lead to costly, disruptive downtime and wasted labor.

As factories transform digitally and autonomously, demand for these devices is vastly growing to prevent these issues and enable proactive maintenance. Along with that demand is the increasing expectation that sensors will be fast, accurate, and durable, as more factories seek continuous production and efficiency.

Next-generation, data-driven solution

The need to capture multiple types of measurement in extremely small packages is pushing the development of multi-sensing elements, including TE Connectivity’s 830M1 embedded piezoelectric (PE) triaxial accelerometer. The advanced, embedded device senses acceleration to monitor machine health where wide bandwidth, small size, low power, and robust performance are essential. The accelerometer’s superior resolution provides a reliable solution for long-term, stable, and accurate performance for industrial condition monitoring applications in harsh environments. Its fully hermetic, leadless chip carrier (LCC) package allows the printed circuit board (PCB)-mountable sensor to measure acceleration in X, Y, and Z in a single package, rather than three, reducing the envelope and lowering costs.

“These sensors give you an endless amount of data, which not only helps the factory run 24/7 but improves the efficiency of the machinery because you can continually adjust the parameters,” says Bjorn Ryden, director of product management at TE. “It increases productivity by minimizing downtime and it helps address workplace safety.”

During development, TE focused on key parameters and design components to ease continuous condition monitoring, providing information to guide better decision making to operate in harsh environments. The central technology element in the 830M1 is the internal PE sensing technology, offering superior frequency response, measurement resolution, long-term stability, and minimal long-term drift. PE requires no power, and signal conditioning (charge to voltage conversion) can be provided within a device with very low current requirement.

“This is a proven, reliable technology,” Ryden says. “The key benefit is the wide bandwidth or frequency response. It also has superior measurement resolution as the 830M1 offers up to 15kHz bandwidth of frequency response. Together with a measurement resolution, that enables the end user to ascertain very early failure modes in high-speed applications.”

The earlier the shop-floor worker can detect a problem, the less expensive the repair solution is going to be.

Future sensor technology

Ryden predicts that Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)-enabled factories will continue to be the main driving force for sensor adoption and capabilities, making devices more accurate and robust. As a result, manufacturers will achieve improved quality, visibility, and control of their production.

Advances in sensor technologies will also continue to make predictive maintenance more feasible and affordable. Easier installation, miniaturization, and wireless sensing will drive costs down in the future. As the factory floor becomes more connected, additional pieces of equipment and applications will require multiple sensors in a small footprint. This will push further sensor miniaturization while also lowering power requirements. In addition, machinists will rely more on wireless solutions for retrofitting existing equipment and achieving a high return on investment (ROI).

Another evident trend is increased sensor fusion. This includes using multi-sensor integration and having everything connected on the factory floor to capture multiple types of measurements, creating strong, reliable data output.

“The 830M1 really is a combo sensor. It is a triaxial vibration sensor, but it also has an internal resistance temperature detector (RTD) that offers a temperature output,” Ryden adds. “The end user has the option to read both temperature and vibration from that sensor.”

As IIoT becomes more secure, improving the safe transfer of critical data, sensor fusion should accelerate. In turn, this will enhance remote operating capabilities.

There’s also a growing need for smarter sensors to process and interpret large quantities of data. This space is evolving as we move into a more connected world.

Implementing intelligence and machine learning on the sensors is only in the early stages, but Ryden expects to see shifts as industry enters the next phase of the evolution of IIoT factories.

“We consider ourselves vital to addressing this market and the evolving market for sensor fusion and artificial intelligence (AI),” Ryden says. “And we will continue to partner with our customers and work together with ecosystem partners to solve these challenges and develop our next generation of sensors that we can then tailor to these needs.”

TE Connectivity
https://www.te.com

About the author: Michelle Jacobson is the assistant editor of TMD. She can be reached at mjacobson@gie.net or 216.393.0323.

1. AutoForm was founded in 1995 and is recognized as the leading supplier of software solutions for die-making and sheet-metal-forming industries.

Since then, the company has continually grown at a rapid pace. The company has profoundly revolutionized the market with its innovations for swift and reliable validation of the design, engineering, and manufacturing processes. AutoForm is well known in the forming simulation industry for its fast-solving speed and ease of use.

2. Simulate the forming process using AutoForm.

AutoForm simulation is a crucial tool for engineering small parts and their manufacturing processes. AutoForm’s technology generates simulation results that accurately predict all aspects of physical component quality, as well as dimensional compliance. By analyzing potential issues in the virtual world using simulation, it’s possible to avoid costly issues in real-world tooling.

3. AutoForm can predict forming issues such as splitting, thinning, wrinkling, and spring-back, and the software provides analysis of part variation.

This allows companies to make countermeasures to resolve issues prior to tooling while adhering to the tight design tolerances required in the medical industry. By using AutoForm simulation, companies can shorten their overall engineering and tooling timelines.

4. AutoForm simulation technology can be used on exotic materials.

Companies rely on AutoForm’s Material Generator to depict exotic material behavior during the forming process. Material characteristics collected from easily performed tests and incorporated into AutoForm’s Material Generator can greatly increase the accuracy of simulation results. Materials include stainless steel, titanium, Nitinol, Inconel, and others commonly used in the medical industry.

Using AutoForm’s Compensator module, die faces are compensated in the opposite direction of spring-back. Final part geometry within the required tolerances is achieved with a minimum amount of correction loops. The biggest advantage with AutoForm’s Compensator module is the advanced engineering methods which are used to reduce or eliminate costly recuts to the forming dies.

AutoForm Engineering USA Inc.
https://www.autoform.com