Satisfied customers thanks to Festo automation
Ready for action faster with standard products
Family-owned British company Harwin Plc specialises in high-performance plug connectors. The demands in this market are increasing just as quickly as miniaturisation is advancing. In the meantime, products have achieved pin spacing of just 1.25 mm but also have to withstand countless plugging operations, in some cases under extreme conditions. Harwin produces them in a great many variants.
The new production line for the Gecko series therefore needed to be flexible and offer the highest levels of reliability, precision, repetition accuracy and cost efficiency. The solution was a modular, scalable automation concept from Festo. The advantages include faster production lines, simplified commissioning and easy maintenance.
High-precision dispensing of cast resin
Specially developed cast resin keeps electronic components protected from dirt and moisture. Applying this material efficiently requires highly developed engineering skills, as it involves complex curved paths in the tightest of spaces. And, what's more, the motion required constantly changes, since the production batches in the electronics industry are usually very small. Machines therefore need to be quick, easy and economical to reconfigure.
The world's leading provider of micro dispenser systems is bdtronic GmbH in Weikersheim in south-west Germany. As the company values high flexibility and optimum use of space as well as absolute precision and process reliability, it selected a complete solution from Festo for its mini-dis product, with the compact handling system YXMx at its core.
A new machine concept for selective soldering
Sensors are the sensory organs of (semi)-autonomous vehicles and their numbers are increasing.. These sensitive sensors need to be tough, which is why they have a protective housing. Individual soldering operations have to be carried out inside the housing. IPTE Factory Automation n.v. in Belgium is an expert in industrial automation and develops systems for soldering tasks, in this case together with Festo.
The new machine concept for selective sensor soldering directly in the housing enables exactly the required high level of process quality, reproducibility and amazing production speeds with cycle times of less than three seconds.
Time for innovative automation
For a watch to be ‘Swiss made’, at least 60% of the manufacturing steps must take place in Switzerland. Because domestic production is associated with considerable cost pressure, efficient automation plays a critical role in this industry, for example for picking and placing the wide variety of extremely thin, lightweight, precision stamped parts. The multifunctional palletiser from special machine manufacturer Amax executes this task reliably, accurately and with support from Festo.
Since it was not just a question of high speed but also of placement accuracy, Amax also relied on engineering expertise from Festo.
High-precision dosing with different viscosities
Precisely gluing smartphone displays, applying thermal paste or gluing micro cameras in place are just a selection of the adhesive processes that represent the dosing and dispensing competencies of ViscoTec. Now the company has brought out cartridge applicator units designed for exact and clean feeding of adhesives, pastes and silicones of different viscosities, supported by a pneumatic control module supplied by Festo right to the ViscoTec assembly line as a ready-to-install module.
Benefits of standardisation and modularisation
The maths are simple: money saved during development, engineering and software programming will be reflected positively on your balance sheet. Furthermore, your purchasing department benefits from economies of scale. And you can offer your solutions more quickly and flexibly. Torsten Schulz, Head of Global Key Account Management, Electronics and Assembly industry segment, uses a sample calculation to show where the biggest potential savings can be made.
Your savings potential in black and white
Your success depends largely on the time and effort spent on design engineering and on the products you use. When you focus on standardised products and solutions, you can immediately boost your profit by 20% to 30%. This has also been demonstrated by a study of the industry in Germany by the VDMA.
Download the study "The future of German machine building" (PDF)