Customized automation of EMAG vertical lathes

At Räder-Vogel, a customized robot cell from HALTER CNC Automation ensures workpieces are continuously loaded onto two vertical lathes. The project shows how an almost standardized solution can be converted into customized automation.

Räder-Vogel supplies wheels and castors for industrial trucks, transport and storage technology, industry, trade and commerce. In a total area of ​​almost 20,000 square meters, the company produces more than 30,000 wheels every day with more than 25 different wheel covering materials.

“Our production is divided into three areas. Plant 3 is responsible for injection molding and tool and die production. This is where the plastic components for our solutions are produced, among other things. Our actual core expertise is located in Plant 2, because this is where we produce the coverings for our wheels. Finally, Plant 1 is home to mechanical production, where we process more than 8,000 tons of cast iron and steel annually for the production of our wheel centers on more than 30 turning and machining centers,” explains Jan Hoick, Head of the Machining Department at Räder-Vogel.

Short lead times thanks to parallel production
The machine park in Plant 1 also includes two EMAG VL5i vertical lathes for the production of wheel centers in a two-sided machining process, where one side of a wheel center is produced on each of the two independent machines. According to Jan Hoick, this has decisive advantages: “By machining both sides of the wheel center in parallel with a machining time of around 1 minute per side, we achieve short chip-to-chip times, because the main spindles of the machines also serve as pick-up stations for the components. In addition, the machines can be easily changed over, which is sometimes the case several times a day.”

Partial automation with limited workpiece buffer
Each machinehas a circulating conveyor belt for feeding in material and removing semi-finished and finished parts. In the past, both lathes were connected to each other with a transfer and turning unit from EMAG for the workpiece transfer from OP10 to OP20.

A decisive shortcoming: the conveyor belt was used as workpiece storage for the machines, but it only has a limited capacity of at most eight parts. Therefore, an employee had to be permanently on site to load the belt from one machine for OP10 and to transfer the finished parts from the belt of the second machine to OP20.

Increasing focus on robotics
“We recognized some time ago that not only the shortage of skilled personnel, but also the shortage of personnel in general is becoming an increasingly relevant problem and therefore we decided to focus more on automation with robots. In order to gain important experience in this context, we chose the two vertical lathes from EMAG as one of the first automation projects,” says Jan Hoick.

The aim of the proposed solution was to automatically supply the machines with more parts than before for two-sided machining, while at the same time reducing the amount of labor previously required. “That is why we received several quotes for automation solutions. In the end, the robot cell from HALTER CNC Automation convinced us, mainly because of the simple and intuitive control software.”

Standard cell adapted to customer specifications
Specifically, a HALTER Turnstacker Premium 25 is used for the automatic loading and unloading of the lathes. The impressively simple automation concept of the robot cell is clear to anyone who sees it. While the robot removes the raw parts for loading a machine from the individually configurable workpiece buffer at the front, in this case a rotary table with stacking stations, the finished parts that are returned after machining by the robot can be removed at the rear of the cell and the workpiece buffer can be loaded with new workpieces.

For use on the EMAG lathes, the standard robot cell from HALTER CNC Automation was adapted to the individual requirements of Räder-Vogel, as illustrated by Jan Hoick's description of a typical production sequence: “The robot continuously loads the conveyor belt of the first machine with workpieces for OP10.

Once one side of the wheel center has been machined, it takes the semi-finished workpiece from the conveyor belt, transports it to a reversing station and places it in the correct position for OP20 on the belt of the second machine. The workpiece space on the conveyor belt of the first machine that is freed up in this way is reloaded by the robot with a workpiece from the unprocessed parts magazine. Finally, the finished parts do not return to the Halter robot cell but are deposited by the robot on a Euro pallet.”

Continuous replenishment for production
The turntable of the robot cell has a total of 12 stacking stations, four of which are accessible for manual loading at the rear of the cell, which is equipped with a partition wall. Jan Hoick explains: “10 stations are permanently loaded with a total of around 50 workpieces.

This means that there are always two stations free for new workpieces, after they have been processed by the robot. The actual production process can therefore be fully automated, because the robot continuously supplies raw parts for OP10, transfers parts between the two machines and also takes over the storage of the finished parts after OP20.”

Unmanned production on the third shift
Where previously a machine operator and an additional production employee were needed to load and unload the lathes, the production employee can now devote himself to other tasks in the factory. According to Jan Hoick, a permanent presence of employees at the machines is no longer necessary anyway: “The machine operator who is still responsible for another system now only has to occasionally load the workpiece buffer of the robot cell with raw parts, so that production is continuous. Production usually takes place in three shifts. Before the third shift, we also prepare the workpiece buffer in such a way that the systems can produce completely unmanned until late at night.”

The system from HALTER CNC Automation was installed at Räder-Vogel in January 2023. Jan Hoick is very satisfied with the entire course of the project, from planning to realization and the results: “Halter has implemented all our wishes quickly and flexibly and also responded directly to further requirements from our side, for example by adapting the robot kinematics due to the repositioning of the pallet with finished workpieces in the production area or the storage of the finished workpieces on different pallet levels. Halter also always kept an eye on safety in all project phases and left nothing to be desired.”