Johnson Controls Material Handling Case Study
Key Technology
- Two ABB IRB 6600 6 axis robots with Foundry package to resist damage from the acidic environment
- Bastian Robotics and FEI Conveyor
- Wulftec Stretch Wrapper
- Lathrup Industries Turntables
- Banner Detection Photo Eyes
- Allen Bradley Controls
Business Challenges
- Manual handling of heavy acidic batteries
- Johnson Controls wanted to pull two existing robot systems out of storage and reconfigure/install them at their Toledo, OH facility to eliminate manual stacking of batteries
- BMH needed to integrate with Johnson Controls existing equipment and ensure seamless automatic changeovers
- Additional challenges were a demanding schedule, limited floor space, and production rate of 30 batteries/minute for a system originally designed to do only 20 batteries per minute
Results
- BMH met Johnson Control's system rate goal of 30 batteries/minute
- Labor Requirements were reduced to zero
- Shift operations are now able to run 24/7
- The new system operates at 98%+ Uptime
Multi-Media
Videos
Johnson Controls Case StudyPhotos
Order Picking
Pallet Jack
Warehouse Order Picking
Picking Technologies
Robotic Pallet Building
Robotic Palletizer
Pallet Turntable
Stretch Wrapper
Pallet JacksCase Study Video- Script
Headquartered in Milwaukee, WI Johnson Controls has 140,000 employees in more than 1,300 locations globally. They service customers in 125 countries. Since its start in 1885, Johnson Controls has grown into a global leader in automotive, building efficiency and power solutions. Johnson Controls provides batteries for automobiles and hybrid electric vehicles, along with systems engineering and service expertise. The company also provides innovative automotive interiors that help make driving more comfortable, safe and enjoyable. For buildings, it offers products and services that optimize energy use and improve comfort and security.
Johnson Controls produces batteries for all of the following applications: Passenger Cars, Commercial and Agricultural, Motorcycles, Jetskies, snowmobiles, and quads, Golf carts, Lawn & Garden, Wheel Chairs, Marine, Solar Energy
A last minute request was made to pull a system out of storage and reconfigure it to meet the Toledo facility layout. The rate for Toledo is 30 bpm off one line which exceeds the rates of other plants and our system by 50%. The overall layout was designed to accommodate the two robots while allowing access for forklift drivers to resupply the system. It was also designed to be integrated with all of the other changes in Toledo: A new Sipper, Washer, Dryer. The infeed conveyor brings the battery to the system and contains the logic for change over detection. Change over detection on this system consists of using Banner photo eyes to detect white tape located on the leading edge of the first battery of a new product type. The Brake-meter belt spaces singulates the batteries so they can be counted and sent to the row former.
The row former creates the rows of batteries for the robot to pick and place on the pallet. It is a rugged piece of equipment that performs one of the most complicated processes. It has to be fast enough to make rate, gentle enough to not throw batteries off the conveyor, and strong enough to push heavy batteries into the tool. The system has to contend with multiple shapes and sizes as well as wet and dry conditions.
The pallet dispenser will hold 20 pallets and dispenses them one at a time as the system requires. Broken boards is the most common problem with the dispenser. The Load Bulding conveyor is where we position the pallet that we are going to place batteries on. The slip sheet bin holds a pallet of sheets which are placed on the the bottom of each pallet. The bin consists of two tiers of pallet conveyor and a lift conveyor. Up to two loads can be staged on the top conveyor. The hydraulic lift conveyor indexes the sheets to the proper pick position. When the pallet is empty, the lift lowers, and the empty pallet is discharged on the lower conveyor. This allows for continuous operation of the robot cell with out interuption for re-supply. The driver needs to resupply approximately every 45 minutes.
We commonly use a PanelView 1000 plus which provides a nice color screen for the operators and enables us use color to indicate status or separation of functionality. The main screen consists of current status information in Orange Boxes, Paths to other screens in Blue Boxes and the main system controls in the center. As you can see in the lower right corner of the screen we also incorporate a User login, which allows us to control access to different commands based on the customers' requirements.
9 weeks from PO to beneficial use. We managed to hit all 3 winter holidays with this project. Normally, our Acceptance testing would start immediately after beneficial use, but with this system we were required to run 24 hour production during startup and training. That combined with no FAT made the fine tuning period take longer.
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