Prepackaged Automation by Molders for Molders

Noble Plastics, a 24-year-old custom injection molder in Grand Coteau, Louisiana, has been building a second business in post-molding automation. Company co-founders Scott Rogers, technical director and automation developer, and Missy Rogers, president, highlighted three product offerings based on their experience with automated parts handling.

• A pre-engineered machine tending system called tendiGo is designed to be easy to use with very little setup involved and no need for robot programming/operating skills to set up, fine-tune and maintain existing programs. New programs can be created from templates or existing programs and then tweaked with no traditional six-axis programming skills. If a new sequence for post-mold automation is needed, it is programmed in the traditional way and then may be used as a template for future programs.
   
• Launched last year, the system is based on a Fanuc six-axis robot (for which Noble Plastics is an authorized system integrator), together with safety guarding, exit conveyor and a touchscreen controller for the robot and auxiliaries. “Our goal is to make a pick-and-place robot tending system as easy to buy as a resin dryer,” Missy Rogers says. “Why pay the price for a custom automation system that takes six months to deliver and install? Ours can be delivered at 8 a.m. and be up and running with your operators trained by 4 p.m.” Adds Scott Rogers, “It comes with programs written for your first job, along with a standard template for future setups. It’s easy to interface with the press and future releases will talk to your ERP system (now in beta).” The controller interfaces with the press controls via Euromap protocol and can display real-time data on machine cycles and good/bad parts counts, along with status of the press, end-of-arm tooling and auxiliary equipment.
   
• A palletizing system based on a Fanuc cobot handles payloads up to 55 lbs and packs up to six cases/min. (doubled if picking two at a time) for up to 72" pallet height with slip-sheet placement, if needed. It uses a tablet interface and needs little or no hard guarding — depending on the EOAT and product being handled —thereby minimizing its footprint.
   
• The Stackinator is a stacking system based on a Fanuc CRX cobot. It requires no programming “out of the box,” though users can easily add further programming of their own. It can stack various configurations, such as pyramids or cubes with alternating corners. The EOAT comes with self-contained vacuum generators for the suction cups. Mechanical box grippers are also available for handling boxes without lids.
   
•  Noble Plastics also showed off its ROC40 shop monitoring system, designed by Scott Rogers to “get information to the right people in the shortest time.” The name is based on “Return on Capital” and Industry 4.0. In development for at least two years, its goal is to give “all operational roles instant access to their responsibilities, goals, priorities, progress and predicted outcomes.” Utilizing the OPC UA data-exchange protocol, ROC40 uses real-time data from ERP systems plus some artificial intelligence to predict how a manufacturing cell will perform relative to its target. Jobs are color coded green for on target, yellow for jobs that are in danger but recoverable within the shift and red for jobs unlikely to achieve the target. The system can display results on a PC screen or on mobile devices. Scott Rogers says, “A key feature is issue tracking, which allows tracking of current issues, their state and resolution time by role and severity.”