Mahr Engineered Solutions (MES), a metrology specialist that is headquartered in Germany and represented globally, has retrofitted an existing MarForm MMQ 400 form-measuring device for a Bavarian company in the measurement, control and drive technology sector. The retrofit is enabling the customer to benefit from ‘significantly increased productivity, greater flexibility, and the economical use of its existing investment’.
However, developing the solution presented challenges, as more than 20 different workpiece types in batches of up to 100 parts needed to be automatically inspected for their form characteristics, such as flatness, roundness, or coaxiality. To achieve this, MES installed a collaborative robot with an XL-MahrFeeder as an upgrade to a MarForm MMQ 400 already in use by the customer, supporting this with ‘a framework program’ available in MarWin.
This program is designed to allow the customer to easily integrate new components and for the robot to load and unload the measuring station automatically. Mahr says the degree of utilisation of the measuring device has increased considerably, adding that with the cost per part dropping significantly the investment will quickly pay for itself.
The MahrFeeder is a workpiece storage system with drawers from which the robot automatically picks. A three-finger gripper picks up the workpieces from the inside or outside, depending on its design. One by one, the robot places the workpieces on the centring and tilting table of the form-measuring device; this automation means an operator is now only required to reload the drawers, which contain blue foam inserts tailored to the customer’s workpieces.
MES also adapted the measuring process itself to the customer’s requirements and programmed special commands for the robot in MarWin. As soon as the workpiece is placed on the centring and tilting table of the MarForm MMQ 400, it is aligned and the measuring process starts. A digital media camera then reads the code with all the workpiece information, which is transferred to the measurement report and provides the customer with complete traceability of the measurement results. The robot stores the parts that are not ‘in order’ separately so that they can be inspected and reworked again if necessary.