Automatic screwing of washing machine doors with a screwingdriving robot

Increasing productivity is one of the main priorities of manufacturing companies today. Qbig's engineers work every day on automation solutions and systems that improve the productivity of industrial plants. One of the latest projects of the company from Łódź is a machine to automate screwing applications, based on the multi-axis screwdriver robot KR AGILUS.

Automatic solutions for robotic screwdriving allow efficient production and assembly

Time is money. Nowhere is this phrase more important than in industrial plants. Manufacturing as many products as possible in the shortest possible time without any deterioration in quality, cost-efficiently, is an ideal that every entrepreneur strives for. There are many methods for increasing productivity. But one of the most preferable, and in recent years one of the most developed, is to automate production processes.

KR AGILUS screwdriver and robotic screw system help to increase the productivity of the plant

Qbig, located in Łódź, creates and develops advanced automatic solutions, using the latest industrial robotic technology. Qbig’s engineers carried out their latest project for one of the leading manufacturers of household appliances. Their task was to create a sub-assembly line together with a fully automated station for screwdriving window doors of washing machines in order to shorten the screw time and overall production process, to support human workers, enhance the assembly processes and ultimately productivity of the customer's plant for washing machine manufacture.

Assembly time: The screwdriver robot KR AGILUS in operation, screwing together elements of washing machines.

Assisting a human with a robotics for a monotonous and tiring job such as screwdriving allows resources to be freed up and an employee to be used in more valuable task. Robots increase the productivity of the plant by reducing the screwdriving cycle time.

Bartosz Łuczak, co-owner of Qbig

Screwdriving on the fly, the most effective method:

The customer, who selected Qbig's project from the proposals of several companies, had high demands on the screw cycle time. This was quite a challenge in the design phase of the screwdriving technology. Screwing “on the fly” consists of the assembly of components, in this case the windows of the washing machines, as they move through the transport system inside the machine. This means, while the last screw is being inserted, the window moves, freeing up space and allowing the next product part to enter, stop and position itself, so that the robotic screw can start again. This is an innovative solution of Qbig that enables a significant reduction in cycle time in production, especially to screw, thanks to the automatic screwdriving system.

The process of automatic screwdriving “in alignment with the continuous movement of the conveyor” consists of the assembly of the various elements as they move through the transport system inside the machine

KUKA.ConveyorTech for automatic screwdriving applications

Screwing on the fly is a solution that allows the optimal use of the potential of robotics and the automatic screwing spindle. A serious challenge the Qbig engineers had to overcome was to create a mechanism to precisely determine and control the position of the moving components to enable the correct application of screwing. The use of KUKA.ConveyorTech software for screwdriving proposed by our specialists proved to be crucial in this case. This technology is responsible for organizing interaction between the robot and line conveyor. The task of the software is to automatically adjust the robot's movements to the linear motion of the production line.

Precision in tracking with the screwdriver robot KR AGILUS

“We’ve been looking for an automatic feeding solution in consultation with KUKA. We didn’t realize that there is such an application as KUKA.ConveyorTech. We knew that it was possible to track and control packages on the line, for example, but we were not sure if this tracking was accurate enough to be used with a screwing device. However, we received confirmation from KUKA that the precision of this technology would be sufficient to screw on the fly. At first, we had doubts, but in the end the KUKA.ConveyorTech application solved half of our problems”, reports Bartosz Łuczak.

Precise automatic screwdriving system integration done by Qbig

In partnership with KUKA, Qbig's was able to meet all of its customer's requirements

Finally, Qbig's engineers succeeded in developing a device that met the customer's requirements. The automated on the fly screwdriving of the elements enabled the end customer to achieve the desired objectives and above all to increase the productivity of the screw system. This is certainly not Qbig's last project, based on the potential of KUKA robots. The common goal was to improve productivity of the screw system and facilitate the work of the crew. This task has been fulfilled perfectly.