A profitable implementation of collaborative robots - A safe and affordable way of increasing production rate and quality
Typ
Examensarbete på grundnivå
Program
Maskinteknik 180 hp (högskoleingenjör)
Publicerad
2023
Författare
Bredvad-Jensen, Johan
Johansson, Jakob
Modellbyggare
Tidskriftstitel
ISSN
Volymtitel
Utgivare
Sammanfattning
At Volvo Powertrain in Skövde combustion engine cylinder heads are casted at foundry 2. Most of the
manufacturing of their products is fully automated, but the assembly of the sand cores prior to casting
for the D6 and D4 cylinder heads is manual, since they are produced in smaller quantities. At the
current workstation the manual assembly creates a bottleneck, due to problems with the production
and error rates. Volvo Powertrain therefore wants a study performed about the possibility of using
collaborative robots for the gluing of the sand cores.
To find a suitable concept for a new workstation a requirement specification was created. With idea
generation methods, concepts were created and later evaluated using decisions matrices until a final
concept remained. In unison with the decision matrices. A simplified risk assessment was performed
and data from recordings of the current production was acquired. The data acquired was then
statistically evaluated with the three-point method. This was then used in the visualisation. After the
visualisation a simplified ergonomic and economic evaluation was performed.
The final concept consisted of two collaborative robots of the model FANUC CRX-25iA, one with a
moving pedestal and one with a permanently placed pedestal. The movable pedestal opens for the use
of the FANUC robot at other parts of the factory. The end effector of the FANUC robot has a glue gun
attached to it that will disperse glue. A camera mounted on a beam in the workstation is used to scan
the position of where the glue should be applied. The current workstation uses a telfer with a manual
glue gun attached, by keeping this the flexibility is kept. In addition, preventative measures used in the
risk assessment is added to the workstation.
The authors recommend the implementation of collaborative robots for the manufacturing of the D6
and D4 cylinder heads. The findings in this thesis indicates a potential increase of production rate with
44%, with less errors and high degree of safety. Also, the ergonomic evaluation points towards that the
operators will experiencing less strain compared to the current workstation. The risk assessment
reveals that this solution can be implemented with acceptable levels of risks to the operators and the
property of Volvo Powertrain. The implementation of collaborative robots is assessed to be
economically justifiable due to the payback time being 0,6 years. The authors assess that the positive
effects that apply to the D6 cylinder head will also apply to the D4 cylinder head. An implementation
of the solution that the authors present would increase the knowledge at Volvo Powertrain and enable
new exciting projects with collaborative robots in the future.