Bike lock line

Scope

Turnkey delivery (Delivery parts of installation by client);

• Analyzes existing parts, functional design, concepts and available tooling.
• Adaptation and expansion functional design, part concepts, technical designs, replacement existing parts, construction and commissioning.
• Development of new machine parts for additional and new features in the bicycle lock

Purpose

Benefit for client;

• Reuse of as many existing parts and tooling as possible for the production of a new and more advanced type of slot.
• Lower production costs (labor costs and availability) due to far-reaching automation and increase capacity.
• High degree of reliability, so quality-enhancing.

Goal

Fully automatic assembly of bicycle locks, where the parts are supplied from bulk. In addition, a 100% control of the presence of all components, function of all components separately and the operation of the entire product. Operation of the line by approximately 2 FTE.

Issue

The product consists of 8 plastic parts 10 metal parts, 7 operations and various control stations. The larger parts are difficult to supply from vibrating fillers and are therefore supplied in deep-drawn blisters. Also, a spring, in tension, must be fed between two eyes that are not in a defined place and can not be fixed temporarily.

The entire installation consists of 2 main groups, the metal and the plastic part. In addition, due to the large number of stations and the strict order of application of all components, the reliability of the various stations for the entire installation is a crucial item because the performance due to (minor) disturbances in the stations is already enormous Fall of the final OEE can lead.

Challenges were the requested capacity (900 clocks per hour), reliability (OEE> 95%), as well as logistic handling for tracking and tracing the key and final combinations. The locks are functionally tested with a key but can not be physically inserted into the lock in the various operations.

Of course, the reuse of some parts from the existing installation was an additional disadvantage because it had to be dismantled first and had to be tested with its own (temporary) operating systems.

Approach

In the concept phase, the plastic product part has chosen a paced table concept with the various processing stations such as labelling, painting and tagging from a roll. This is a fast and relatively inexpensive principle and can be applied here because the different operations do not require much space. This station is due to the features, less physical operations, less susceptible to interference, and slightly faster than the metal part. Therefore, silence times in the metal section can be re-opened.

The metal part has been chosen for an accumulating circulation system with carriers because it is true assembly steps, with parts being supplied at all positions, often requiring a lot of space such as tray handlers and conveyor conveyors of, among others, boxe

For the purpose of the assembly steps make use of pneumatic and servo controlled pick & place units, vibrating rollers for the smaller parts and trayhandlers for the larger parts. Placing a spring in an undefined position is performed by a vision system that passes the correct coordinates to a servo-driven Pick & place. To determine the consequences of any To reduce disturbances, we have chosen a possible buffer between the two main parts so that we can solve disturbances without this due to capacity.

All provided risk bearing tooling has been modified and tested in our own workshop. Of course, we have involved the support of the current operators involved in these tests and thankfully used their existing knowledge and experience.