Shivkumar Srinivasan – MELSS

Touch Free Manufacturing with Robotics for FMCG

Shivkumar Srinivasan — Sat, 24 Jul 2021 05:38:33 +0000

The FMCG manufacturing cycle – for products including processed food, beverages, dry goods, cosmetics, toiletries and prepared food – starts from raw materials and ends with the finished product, followed by despatch. To ensure minimum contamination, uniform quality and hygiene, touch-free manufacturing is resorted to. While automation using conveyors, silos and batching is used, robotics also has an important role to play in the process.

Processed Food

Processed food items such as chocolates, biscuits and different types of bread have turned to robotics to improve efficiency. Handling such items requires specialised robots with food-grade EOATs. Operations such as weighing of raw powders and scoring have also benefited from robotics. For pick and place prior to packing in appropriate packets also the robots need food-grade EOATs to handle these items, and vision systems to identify based on size and shape. These robots also help to pick and place raw produce such as fruits and veggies for sauces and jams, as also in cutting meat slices.

Beverages

Items such as smoothies, coffee, tea, juices and shakes use programmable robots for mixing the right proportions of fruits, bean grades or tea grades. Food grade robots are used for processing the raw items. For bottled beverages, vision sensors are used to ensure optimum filling.

Cosmetics

Cosmetics such as eyeliner, nail polish and face powder need different types of cobots to fill the soft containers optimally. Also, the vast colour palette of nail polish calls for more advanced vision systems to help the cobots distinguish based on colours and sort accordingly. The face powder pack needs to be capped appropriately before being moved to the delivery conveyor.

Many brands have turned to robotics for research and development of future products. Hair-care products use Collaborative Robots with appropriate grippers to simulate different styles of combing with the associated application pressure.

Toiletries

Many personal grooming products such as shavers, assembled from different parts, are created using different manufacturing lines for each part. For efficient pick and place of the small components, each robot is accompanied by a vision system. The frequently changing customer requirements call for models to be changed often. The robots used to handle them are programmable so that the same robot can be used for other models with a simple change of program.

Prepared Food

We touch different surfaces, thereby gaining contact with unwanted and hidden bacteria and viruses. For pure food preparation, untouched by hands, cobots are being deployed. Equipped with appropriate End of Arm Tooling (EOATs), the cobots can be programmed for various recipes. With relevant ingredients available at predesignated places within the kitchen, these cobots go about preparing healthier food using the precise amount of ingredients as programmed for the recipe. The use of these robotic kitchens is gaining prevalence today.

Packing and Palletising

Packing and palletising is the most important stage in the supply chain of many FMCG products. Consumers today are overwhelmed by choice in this era of online shopping and these fast-moving products are often dictated by the ever-changing consumer demands resulting in short shelf-life. Robots help in the fast packing and palletising of the finished products leading to shorter goods-to-person times.

Touch free handling of finished goods for packing is handled by food-grade EOATs fitted on the robots to ensure zero contamination. Palletising is handled by robots ensuring optimum quantity of goods in each carton. Pick and place is an important task in the packing and palletising process, needing accurate and quick storage and picking from appropriate bins in the warehouse. Robots have transformed the packing and palletising of FMCG in tune with the times.

Take a look at this Robotic Palletising Guide from OnRobot.

Common tasks

Over and above the mentioned roles, robots in FMCG perform quality control, when used with vision sensors. These robots are dexterous, capable of soft handling, unlike their counterparts used in other industries. Besides, all these robots are programmable for quick adaptability with different types of goods, as is the norm in the FMCG industry.

MELSS has been providing various industrial automation and robotics solutions to different industry segments, collaborating with major brands such as Doosan Robotics and OnRobot.

Benefits of UV Curing

Shivkumar Srinivasan — Thu, 24 Jun 2021 05:07:37 +0000

UV Curing technology has benefited many industries, providing superior bonding, improving efficiency, and ensuring lesser errors and wastage.

About UV Curing

UV radiation is widely used in industrial processes, in medical and dental practices for a variety of purposes, such as killing bacteria, creating fluorescent effects, curing inks and resins, phototherapy and suntanning. Different UV wavelengths and intensities are used for different purposes.

Applications in the Medical Industry

The medical industry is the biggest industry that finds use for precision spot UV curing of adhesives. Innovative and intelligent, lamp and LED UV curing systems are used for precision spot and area curing of medical device assemblies and additive manufacturing. UV curing systems are ideal for assembling a variety of plastics, glass, stainless steel, rubber and joining similar or dissimilar substrates as part of a controlled UV assembly process. The lamp UV curing systems include features such as Closed-Loop Feedback technology, irradiance adjustment and a selection of band-pass filters to meet UV process requirements.

Ideal Medical Device Manufacturing Applications include:

Catheters	Anaesthesia Masks	IV Delivery Systems
Cannulas	Angioplasty Accessories	Medical Coatings
Endoscopes	Arterial Locators	Medical Filters
Hearing Aids	Atraumatic Guidewire Tips	Rubber Silicones
Hydrogels	Blood Oxygenators	Respiratory Masks
Needles	Chest Drainage Devices	Sensing Devices
Tubing and Connectors	Syringes	Tubing Drainage Sets

Benefits to the Electronics Manufacturing Industry

UV curing is widely used in electronics applications for low-temperature, high-speed, repeatable adhesive bonding, component marking, encapsulation, masking and more. High volume UV assembly applications require precise control of irradiance, spectral output and temperature to achieve the throughput and yields necessary in an automated process. Spot and area curing systems meet the demands of electronics assembly for many applications, including,

Automotive electronics
Bluetooth headsets
Cell phone assembly
Compact camera modules
Digital projectors
Fibre-optic components
Liquid crystal displays
Micro speaker assembly
Optical data storage
Smart cards

Inkjet Printing and Marking Technology

Fibre optic cables are essential components of modern telecommunications infrastructure. These cables consist of multiple fibre-optic cores, fibre-optic bundles, bundling material, ripcord and even electrical conductors.

Fibre-optic cables must comply with a number of regulatory standards for marking the cable jacket. Cable jackets are typically made of medium-density polyethylene and high-density polyethylene as well as polyurethane (PU) and polyamide (PA), all of which present challenges for ink adherence.

Traditional marking or printing technologies for fibre-optic and electrical cables include embossing printing, indent printing, hot foil printing, hot stamp printing and sinter printing. Some of these technologies introduce unwanted stress into the fibre cables, while others are not entirely compatible, or in the case of an indent printer, can introduce safety concerns in the workplace.

UV-curable inks present an attractive alternative approach for marking fibre-optic cables. With this technology, ink is jetted onto the cable assembly using an appropriately sized and compatible inkjet engine, then it is cured with intense UV light. To enhance inkjet adherence to the jacket material, corona or plasma treatment is applied to the cable jacket immediately upstream of the inkjet head. Also, when using UV-curable inks, there are lower concentrations of solvents and no need to discard ribbon backing material as with indent or hot press printing.

The Equipment

OmniCure series small-area and large-area UV curing systems are designed to provide an exceptionally uniform area of high optical power with a range of wavelengths, configurations and sizes to address a variety of applications. Leading-edge UV LED technology also delivers improved energy efficiency and extended service life.

The Future

UV Curing technology is already witnessing automation which promises to improve the boundaries further. UV light sources fulfil a critical role in disinfecting our environments and protecting our populace from dangerous viral and microbial contamination. UV technology is currently used for touchless disinfection in a variety of applications to ensure the highest level of protection and efficiency.

UVC disinfection is a non-contact, chemical-free disinfectant method to kill bacteria or viruses and prevent them from replicating while offering a green process with vast environmental and social benefits.

MELSS brings you cutting-edge solutions in UV Curing solutions, representing Excelitas, USA In India

For more information on this, please E-Mail tpg@melss.com. Visit us at www.melss.com

Design of a robotic palletising project

Shivkumar Srinivasan — Sat, 19 Jun 2021 09:37:23 +0000

Palletising plays a vital role in any production line as it performs the task of the last mile before a batch is readied for despatch. It impacts the production metrics indirectly, as any bottleneck in the last mile before despatch will need a corresponding halt in production.

The design of any robotic palletising project involves a careful analysis of the environment – does it produce a specific range of products, or does the product range change, as in a warehouse environment. It needs to factor in the space available based on which choice has to be made whether to use a cobot or a robot. Here are some key points to consider while designing a robotic palletising project:

Identifying types of items to be handled

The first thing to be analysed are the types of items to be handled. The weight of each item needs to be calculated to arrive at the type of robot to be used, and also to help in creating an appropriately sized pallet. Is the pallet going to handle the same product repeatedly or will there be a mix of products, pallet-wise or different products in the same pallet?

Defining specifications of the pallet

The needs should be properly understood before creating the appropriately sized pallet with the optimum load-bearing capacity. Ease of depalletising also needs to be factored in, once the pallet has been used for maximum cycles. The pallets need to be placed appropriately on the conveyor. Some cases may involve packing prior to palletising, especially for handle-with-care produce such as eggs.

Choosing types of packing

Heavier items which are in powder or flake form such as cement or foodgrains are packed in bags instead of cartons. These items need high-speed robots to handle the palletising. Most other items are, in general, packaged in cartons.

Evaluating the space

The space available for the project needs to be analysed. Should a complete robot with proper fencing be accommodated to ensure non-interference with human activity, or Collaborative Robots which allow work alongside humans? Is there enough space available for an articulated 6-axis robot?

Designing the space

Factors such as the number of robots to be used simultaneously, and the variety of products to be handled need to be considered. Appropriate network of conveyors and lines need to be designed. The same robot may handle more than one type of product, and it should be able to pick each type from respective lines.

Recommissioning

It needs to be ascertained if the product mix will change over time. Some produce may be seasonal, and the palletising should adapt accordingly. The plan should accommodate maximum uptime of the robot, and the time needed for such changeovers should be minimal to ensure least impact on productivity and costs.

Planning for maintenance/repair

A full-fledged robot in an enclosure is ideal to handle heavier loads, but in the event of repair or maintenance it needs more time as the enclosure may be under LOTO and needs to be opened in emergency situations. Collaborative Robots take less time for repair/maintenance since they work alongside humans.

Selecting appropriate End of Arm Tooling (EOAT)

Depending on the products and the packages to be handled, an appropriate EOAT needs to be factored in which can pick and place more in a single cycle. A custom EOAT may also be needed for specialised items. Shelf-ready items are packaged in smaller sizes and smaller End of Arm Tooling may need more cycles for the same output.

Analysing the type of facility – centralised or distributed

The factors discussed above, assume a single facility handling a specific range of products. Centralised facilities need to handle products from other facilities too. These mostly comprise a complex network of conveyors and the palletising needs to be sensitised to such needs. While most requirements are for end-of-line palletisers, specialised requirements may need to be accommodated in earlier stages too.

Ensuring effective traceability

Each carton or pack in a pallet needs to be identified, and this needs the barcode or RFID to be read using appropriate visual scanners. This ensures maximum visibility of each batch for traceability, as is mandated in different regions.

Implementing support software

The entire setup should be supported by an able software to record the events and capture the data for analysis. This will be useful in recommissioning scenarios too.

MELSS has been involved in industrial automation and robotics projects for a variety of industries for the last 25 years. We provide a range of palletising solutions, from robotics to traceability, and each is supported by software too. For more: www.melss.com

The Indian Electric Vehicle Market

Shivkumar Srinivasan — Tue, 15 Jun 2021 07:23:22 +0000

The shift to Electric Vehicles (EVs) is happening world-wide, more rapidly in India today. The purchasing power of India’s burgeoning middle class is increasing, and more people are investing in vehicles. With the increasing cost of fossil-fuels in India, the need for EVs is acute here. However, the scarcity of lithium reserves made the Indian market dependent on other countries to charge the EVs, especially China which has control over 80% of the world’s lithium reserves. The ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ resolve of the government is pushing research on alternate means of charging EVs. The world is moving away from China in the wake of the COVID pandemic and is looking at India as a global manufacturing hub for EVs, riding on the already existing ecosystem of vehicle manufacture here.

Why EVs?

The major advantage of any EV is the ability to regenerate power, which is very useful in any urban environment which involves frequent braking and acceleration. With fewer moving parts EVs need less maintenance and lower operational costs. With no gears, combustion and mechanical drivetrains they are more convenient to operate. Home charging along with government incentives to EV owners such as Income Tax Deduction claim up to INR 150000 make purchasing an EV a wise decision. Besides, zero emission ensures minimal adverse impact on our health. Already, the number of EVs sold has witnessed quantum jumps, year-on-year since 2016.

Source: CEEW-India’s-EV-Transition-Post-COVID-19-22Dec20

The Charging Technology

Economic alternatives to the Li-ion charging have been developed and are ready for commercial use, such as Sodium-ion charging or Aluminium-air technology with abundant reserves available in India. With an impressive cost of manufacture in India, many multinational companies have either started or tied up with Indian companies to manufacture this alternative. Many automobile majors in India have already entered into agreements for use of these alternative charging mechanisms.

Incentivising the manufacture of EVs

In a healthy ecosystem, each state in India is wooing investment in the EV sector with various incentives. The world’s largest Electric Scooter manufacturing facility, OLA. is coming up in Tamil Nadu, and another Electric Scooter brand, Ather, has already started manufacturing here. Major heavy vehicle manufacturers (buses and lorries) are betting big with many state governments shifting their public transport to EVs already.

EV manufacturers, Tata Motors and Mahindra have tied up with an Aluminium-air charger manufacturer to power their EVs. The world’s largest manufacturer of Sodium-ion technology, Faradion, has set up base in India and should start production soon to offer an economic alternative to charge EVs. Major vehicle brands in India – Tata Motors, Hyundai, MG and Mahindra are already offering a line of EVs, and other brands will follow suit. With the expected entirety of vehicle manufacture in India shifting to EVs, the price of EVs will also be attractive as an alternative to fossil-fuelled vehicles. The abundant availability of chargers will make the charging process easy and smooth.

The Infrastructure to Support

The roadmap to EVs as a viable alternative depends on the charging infrastructure available.

“The government is pushing deployment of EV charging stations by providing capital subsidy through Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles in India (FAME) India Scheme Phase II and state level initiatives. Further, the government has delicensed the activity of setting up EV charging stations to increase private sector investments and facilitate market adoption” – Bureau of Energy Efficiency, Government of India, Ministry of Power (https://beeindia.gov.in/content/e-mobility).

Under Phase I of FAME India Scheme, 970 charging stations have been installed, and 2877 more EV charging stations across 25 States/UTs have been sanctioned under Phase II. In a big push for the EV sector, the government shared plans to set up at least one EV charging kiosk at each of the 69000 petrol pumps across the country.

No wonder that the Indian Electric Vehicle Market is poised for growth, and many EVs (cars, scooters, 3-wheeled autos, and heavy vehicles such as lorries and buses – many state bus fleets have already completely shifted to EVs) are already on the roads today. Although the sales figures till today leave much scope for growth, the traction the industry is observing today promises phenomenal growth in the coming years.

Some EV manufacturers who are or maybe making EVs in India:

MELSS provides many electric vehicle test solutions, and has been keeping pace with the fast technology changes in the EV charging space, and brings you an exhaustive range of testing machines from Chroma ATE to test the chargers of EVs. We offer solutions catering to various standards, from AC/DC/CHAdeMO to CCS.

For more, please visit: https://www.melss.com/latest/assembly-test/electric-vehicle-test-solution/