Smart Factory – KUKA demonstrates Industrie 4.0
In its “Smart Factory” application at Hanover Fair, KUKA is demonstrating the networking of production components in versatile and modern concepts. Here, KUKA interconnects its own products designed for Industry 4.0 to create a perfect example of a modern production concept.
Trade fair visitors can have an individual protective cover made for their smartphone in the Smart Factory. Once they have used the tablet to send their order to Swisslog’s Warehouse Manager WM 6 software, production of their smartphone cover begins directly at the trade fair booth. The entire production process is controlled via WM 6.
If the protective cover is not already available in the production stock, the order placed using the tablet is converted by the system controller into a start signal for the KMR iiwa – a KUKA lightweight robot LBR iiwa in kinematic combination with an omnidirectional mobile platform that navigates autonomously.
The mobile robot system moves autonomously as it navigates within the production environment, first of all from the start position to the warehouse area. This is where the Swisslog CycloneCarrier is located.
The warehouse shuttle system, an innovative and high-performance product for case and carton storage, forms one rack level of a warehouse and delivers cases according to the online orders received from the WM 6 system.
If multiple orders are pending, several covers can be produced in one cycle. To increase the throughput, these covers are temporarily stored on the KMR iiwa. The sensitive KMR iiwa then auton-omously navigates to a laser engraving printer and hands over the cover to this printer.
Following the printing operation, the lightweight robot removes the smartphone cover and transfers it to the pickup station. As soon as the cover arrives at the station, a notification of completion is sent directly to the trade fair visitors via WM 6.
Visitors can then collect their personalized trade fair gift. By scanning a QR code sent to the cell phone when the order is placed, visitors can see where their per-sonalized cover is at any time. Once the personalized cover has been completed, visitors can use the same QR code to request the LBR iiwa to hand it over to them.
From time to time, a KUKA small robot of the KR AGILUS type additionally carries out a quality inspection of the covers via a vision system. Using a smartphone, the operator can, at any time, observe this small robot via asset management in the KUKA Cloud, retrieve general information, obtain a diagnosis of problems or contact KUKA Service directly. Through Warehouse Manager WM 6, all Smart Factory components are capable of communicating with one another and sharing the respective order status.
