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Custom Turnkey Factory Automated Machinery
The Problem
In 2007 GKN Sinter Metals in St. Thomas – an automotive powdered metal supplier – approached Bos Innovations with an ambitious product lineup requiring automation that consisted of powdered metal press automation, multiple component assembly, automating furnace load and unload, rust protection, dimensional testing, and sizing press automation.
Bos Innovations was constrained by footprint, handling of components coming from multiple powdered metal presses, widely varying part styles, widely varying sintering slug sizes, a harsh environment due to the nature of powdered metal, fragile products, and possible future products destined for the line.
The Creativity
“We stood back and assessed the entire situation around the assembly automation and understood the need for a highly flexible solution. We also understood that we needed a robust solution for this fully automated application. We believe we came up with the most cost effective, well rounded solution possible and 1-1/2 years later our customerwould agree.” –Ben  Huigenbos, President of Bos Innovations
Bos Innovations and GKN set to task to develop a complete automation strategy to be rolled out in phases. First, Bos designed and built a palletized assembly system utilizing Cognex vision guided Motoman robots to identify, orientate and assemble components together onto changeable pallet tooling. Flexible feeding systems ensure the insertion and verification of the correct sintering slugs. A final robotic offload cell places the part onto a sintering plate and onto an outfeed conveyor to the sinter furnace.
The parts are transferred in a row onto the sinter furnace by a pinch free, open and flexible transfer. The transfer can be quickly disengaged from the furnace for some of GKN’s other manual applications.
The furnace offload presented a unique automation challenge. The system had to handle multiple product types. Also, Parts would end up in somewhat random orientation due to belt variance and thus parts could not simply be shuttled off of the furnace belt onto a conveyor. The parts and sinter plates needed to be separated and sinter plates returned to the assembly automation as well.
“After assessing the state of the parts at the end of the furnace it became clear that a vision guided offload system was the only solution. We were constrained by part variety, sinter plate variety, cycle time, belt variability, randomization, and a moving belt.” –Ben Huigenbos, President of Bos Innovations
One fixed and one robot mounted vision system identifies and locates the next part or sinter plate to be offloaded. The robot gripper is designed to handle multiple parts styles as well as the fragile sinter plates without changeover.
After Sintering, the parts travel by conveyor through a Bos designed, inline rust protection dip tank, and into a test system that servo indexes the parts through orientation, critical dimensioning, acoustic analysis testing, and part ID marking. After this process, some of the parts require a sizing operation which is oriented by a vision system and robotically placed into and removed from the final sizing press.
The Productivity Payoff...
Here's What The Customer Had To Say!
“BOS proposed to GKN the best value technological solutions available on the market and designed methods of vision guided robotic assembly and part handling. Innovative ideas of BOS Engineers and good workmanship of their fabrication, installation and training is reflecting in GKN's productivity and contributes to the bottom line. GKN Sinter Metals Ltd in St. Thomas is currently the organizations' show case for attraction of new customers all thanks to our state of the art process equipment (presses, furnaces, CNC machining, etc) all connected with BOS' exceptional Automation.” –Lance John, Engineering and Quality Manager, GKN St. Thomas, ON
Manual Workstations, Fixtures, and Production Accessories
The Problem
In early 2009, Arctic Equipment, a snow plow manufacturer, approached Bos Innovations about a weld fixture for repeatable manual tacking of a new lineup of plows. Previously Bos designed and built fixturing for a new robotic weld cell for final welding, as well as another manual tacking fixture.
The Creativity
Arctic needed to improve the efficiency and quality of their snow plow manufacturing. In 2005, Bos Innovations was tasked with integrating a robotic weld cell and fixtures for finish welding tacked plows. This system has been operating at high capacity ever since on multiple plow models.
“With our vast automation experience, and our exceptional mechanical engineering and tool making team, Bos Innovations provided Arctic with a reliable, integrated solution that they have been able to count on for years.” –Ben Huigenbos, President of Bos Innovations
In 2006, due to the success of our original project with Arctic, Bos Innovations was tasked with designing and building tack weld fixtures to support and clamp all components into repeatable positions for easier, faster, and more accurate tack assembly of multiple plows. The Plows had different sizes and structure and the fixture had to be quickly adjustable to the size of the current batch of products.
 Again in 2009, with many more models of snow plows and increased production, Arctic required another tack fixture for the same reasons as in 2006. Again, Bos Innovations was the choice because of the success of all past equipment.
“The key to our success on projects like these is to work directly with the customer to find exactly what they are looking for, which allows us to bring the project together exactly as they imagine and need. We ask a lot of questions, and ask the customer to be involved, and that is how we generate successful projects, and a successful business.” –Ben Huigenbos, President of Bos Innovations
The Productivity Payoff...
Here's What The Customer Had To Say!
Our company needed to automate our snow plow manufacturing to solve volume and quality commitments. Three and a half years ago Bos Innovations integrated a robotic weld cell with the first fixtures for our plows. We have purchased multiple weld fixtures since. The equipment was well designed and projects well managed. The equipment is still running well years later and has been integral in the success of our snow plow manufacturing. –Gerald Milliar, Production Supervisor, Arctic Equipment London, On.
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