A door manufacturer needed to keep its fiberglass door skin press running at full speed. The press forms each skin from fiberglass material fed in from the back side, and every formed part has to come out, get deflashed and go onto a stack. With people unloading by hand, the press can only run as fast as the next unload.
We added a robot to tend the press. Material feeds in from the back, the press closes and forms the door skin, and when it opens, the robot picks the skin with a vacuum end-of-arm tool and places it on an accumulation conveyor.
The conveyor holds up to three door skins, and that buffer is what keeps the press from waiting. An operator deflashes each skin and places it on the stack. If they step away for a moment, the press keeps running while parts accumulate.
The robot unloads the same way every cycle, so parts come out of the press consistently and the operator's work is limited to deflashing and stacking. The cell runs at a 10-second cycle time.