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Send to KindleHamburger assembly, packaging gets synchronized
This procedure guarantees sortation at a continuously high output level without the need for buffering. The speed is important for two reasons. First, it provides a high output, and second, it ensures that the burgers are processed quickly enough to prevent thawing. The cheese slices are also easier to process when cold. An increase in temperature can cause the slices to begin sticking to each other. Overhead light scanners integrated upstream from the transfer point to the assembly and packaging line provide the necessary quality assurance. The color scanner supplies a three-dimensional picture of the buns, burgers, sauce sachets, and cheese. As well as evaluating the precise position and rotational angle of the items, the sensors also compare surface dimensions and contour data to operator-specified values and transmit this information to the robots.
The first section of the assembly and packaging line comprises two TLM machine frames housing four TLM-F4 four-axis robot units. The buns enter the line on a wide product conveyor after being cut open by an upstream bun saw. Each robot then takes responsibility for a different task in sequence. The first robot lifts the lid of the bun and places it alongside its base on the conveyor. The next picks up a frozen burger and places it on the base. The third replaces the lid onto the base, and the last robot transfers the assembled hamburger onto a conveyor. The conveyor carries the products to the next stage of the process, where it runs alongside the thermoforming machine.
The next two TLM machine frames are placed above the film web of the tf/f/s machine and the conveyor, and include two robots. The first, a four-axis TLM-F44 robot comprising two TLM-F4 pickers, inserts a sauce sachet and then a cheese slice into a formed blister, after which a two-axis TLM-F2 robot with special end-of-arm tooling picks up eight hamburgers at a time from the conveyor and positions them into eight film cavities. The thermoforming machine then seals the packs with film lidding and finally punches the packs out of the web, ready for downstream processes.
All the units involved in the process—from the bun saw through to the thermoforming machine—are linked to the TLM line by means of signal exchange and a speed target value. Data exchange is organized on the level of the Schubert VMS control system. The units react through the VMS control system to any product-flow disruptions taking place on other parts of the line. If, for instance, the supply of burgers stops due to rejection of several products by the vision system, then the VMS control system slows down the dependent processes briefly until the quality target values are restored. The overall sequence is maintained, and no rejects are produced. In a conventional system without regulation capability, the inability to react results first in quality problems (hamburgers with no burger) and finally in a machine stop.
The optimized process-management concept from IPS has permitted the thermoforming machine cycle to be increased to 88 products/min. Changeover to accommodate five different varieties of Rustlers products takes no more than five minutes: three minutes to exchange the five tools at the TLM-F4 robot arms and select the program at the TLM display, and depending on the packaging, another two minutes to change the film in the thermoforming machine. The overall line is configured in a wash-down design, permitting high water-pressure cleaning using detergents.
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