Collaborative Robot Assembly Cell

What we looked at first

This step justified the spend because three conditions held at once: the parts are small, the volume is high, and the motion is fixed. When all three are true, fatigue and error are structural, not a training problem.

What actually shaped the design was the existing conveyor. The cell is not standalone equipment — it had to sit inside the customer’s current line, so position, height and hand-off points were all constrained by what was already there. We measured that conveyor before choosing the robot.

Configuration

The cell is built on a single stainless bench and has two units.

Collaborative robot arm　Handles pick-and-place. The end effector is a pneumatic gripper we built, fed by orange and red air lines. A collaborative arm was chosen over a conventional industrial robot because operators still work beside this station, so no safety fencing is required.

Linear station　The vertical unit at the left of the bench: linear rail, pneumatic cylinder and controller, performing a fixed-position pressing operation.

The two work together. The arm takes a part from the tray to the locating fixture, the linear station performs the operation, and the arm moves the finished part to the tote.

Site conditions

The trays on the bench hold densely packed copper-coloured parts — small, and in high volume. Fatigue and error are inevitable when work like this is done by hand.

Behind the cell sits the customer’s existing conveyor. This is not a standalone demonstration rig; it is a link in the line the customer already runs. A three-colour signal tower makes the station’s state readable at a glance.

Results

Cycle time, throughput and yield involve the customer’s production data, so we do not publish them here. Please get in touch through the contact form.