Cambridge Precision Ltd (CPL), an engineering specialist, has invested in a Doosan collaborative robot (cobot) supplied by Mills CNC Automation (www.millscnc.co.uk).

The Doosan M0617, equipped with ONRobot electrically driven two-finger parallel grippers and Schunk vices, was installed in
the company’s 24,000ft² facility in St Neots in July and integrated with a Doosan DNM 6700 vertical machining centre.

The cobot is performing machine tool tending operations, including loading workpiece billets (from a loading table) into the DNM 6700 and subsequently unloading the finished components.

CPL manufactures complex parts and undertakes mechanical and electrical assembly for customers operating in specialist industry sectors, including scientific laboratory, X-ray, medical device and research instrumentation.

General manager Nick Raven said: “The cobot helps to free up skilled labour by handling repetitive and less profitable tasks.

“Robbie (the cobot) has been welcomed by the team and has enabled team members to focus on other manufacturing and assembly demands.”

The milling cell with cobot is currently operating 24hr a day and has been programmed to handle more than 20 different projects.

The company estimates that over 5,000 prismatic parts were manufactured in the first two months after the cell was automated.

It is supported by a number of CPL’s partners, including MA Ford, Guhring, Alpha-CAM and Q8 Oils.

It is the company’s first investment in advanced robot technology, and the results achieved to date suggest that it will not be the last.

CPL, which celebrates its 25th birthday this year, has a wide range of multi-axis machining centres and multi-tasking turning centres to machine high-precision and often complex parts for its customers.

Most of these are Doosan machines supplied by Mills CNC, and a significant proportion have built-in automation.

Mr Raven said: “We are keen automation advocates. Recent machine tool investments include machines with a twin-spindle twin-turret configuration, as well as lathes with sub-spindles, driven tools and Y-axis capabilities.

“A number of our lathes also have integrated bar feeders that help to facilitate continuous production.”

Increased productivity

CPL has also recently invested in a number of five-axis machining centres to improve its operational efficiency and increase productivity levels.

Indeed, it was during a visit to Mills CNC’s facility in Leamington earlier this year to see the latest five-axis developments that CPL representatives also saw the potential of using cobots.

PL’s milling supervisor, Andrew Barnard, said: “We had arranged to see the new Doosan DVF 5000 five-axis machine integrated with an automatic workpiece pallet changer at Mills.

“During the visit, we were introduced to the new Doosan cobot range and saw one of the models performing pick-and-place operations.

“We saw immediately that this type of technology could be employed to good effect back at CPL, increasing our ability to meet challenging production issues and lead times.”

He continued: “We were looking to achieve an 18-month payback on the cobot investment, and we believed we could do this by moving one of our existing machining centres — the Doosan DNM 6700 — out of our milling unit into a newly created automation area, where it would be integrated with the cobot.

“The new cell configuration has helped us to increase the DNM 6700’s production capacity (the number of hours it could be used cutting metal) and profitability (autonomous machining with minimal operator intervention).

“As long as we could supply the cell with components that were the right size and weight, and in sufficient batch quantities (ideally 200 to 300), we were confident that we could make it work.”

The Doosan M0617 cobot has a 1.7m reach, a 6kg payload capacity and high-torque sensors on its six-axis articulated arm.

Supplied to CPL with a controller, base unit and teaching pendant, it was set up by Mills CNC Automation application engineers, and on-site training was then provided.

Mr Raven concluded: “It’s still early days, but we are delighted with the cell’s performance, and the decision to invest in collaborative robot technology has been justified.

“As with any investment in new technology, there is a definite learning curve involved, but it wasn’t that long.”