Sepro Automation Solution offers robot users new choices

“Solution by Sepro” is a new program launched by Sepro Group that provides injection molders with the equipment, engineering expertise and additional services needed to bring new levels of efficiency and quality to the process. “Solution by Sepro is a complete package including robot, peripheral equipment, automation system design and services,” explains Jean-Michel Renaudeau, CEO of Sepro Group. “For years we have been saying that robots should be expected to do much more than simply replacing a machine operator for part removal. And, recently, more and more of our customers are discovering that they can, in fact, improve productivity and make added-value parts, by harnessing the power of automation. That is why we have launched this new initiative.” Solution by Sepro encompasses: The full range of 3-axis, 5-axis and 6-axis robots, The ergonomic and powerful Sepro Visual control platform that enables advanced automation management as standard, thanks to the Automation Pack feature. More than 20 years’ experience and know-how that delivers a wide range of proven, competitive automation solutions for insert placement, overmolding, post-mold assembly, simple or complex palletizing, and more. The ability to employ new or operational Sepro robots, integrate them into a manufacturing cell built around new or existing molding machines, regardless of brand. Guaranteed successful commissioning of the robot and its peripherals, and an attentive Customer Service team, ready to assist customers whenever they are needed. Sepro maintains four automation design and production hubs: at company headquarters in La Roche sur Yon in France, at Dietzenbach in Germany, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in North America and Shanghai, China. Here local teams are able to support almost any project. Robots come together with customized, multifunctional end-of-arm tooling, insert feeders and positioning systems, and post-mold inspection, assembly and packaging equipment. Specific solutions are available for: Control… vision; presence/absence of components; electrical continuity Parts handling… shuttle tables; vertical stackers Traceability… marking; labeling; separation by cavity Assembly… closing; clipping; screwing; gluing; welding Cutting… gate vestige removal; flash removal; routing once all the components are complete, complex cells can be set-up and tested before shipment to the customer’s plant. Sepro automation technicians are available to carry out commissioning, start-up and handover the system, ready for full-scale production. Each year, Sepro commissions one hundred or so automated production cells all around the world. For instance, over the last five years, Sepro has installed several increasingly complex systems for a U.S. manufacturer of laboratory pipette tips. The precision tips are molded in tooling with up to 32 cavities. The end-of-arm tooling grips the parts as they are ejected from the mold, re-orients them so that they drop tip-down and are cavity-separated into 96-well racks. Machine-vision inspects each tip for quality and rejects any that are faulty. Another manufacturer, which makes consumer products, recently installed two Sepro automation cells that include Sepro 6X-60 articulated-arm robots working together with Sepro 3-axis Cartesian robots mounted axially on 550-ton molding machines. In each cell, the 6-axis robot picks inserts from a feeder bowl and stages them for pick-up by the Cartesian robot. Dual-purpose end-of-arm tooling (EOAT) picks up the arrayed inserts and, when the mold opens, the vertical arm descends and the EOAT picks finished parts from the moving half of the mold. Then the EOAT moves to the stationary side of the tool so that it can press-fit the inserts into the cavity half of the mold, before it returns to the clamp end of the molding machine to place finished parts on a conveyer and pick up another set of inserts. Still another customer, which molds lenses and frames for LED lighting products first began using robots in a simple cell where LED lenses needed to be properly oriented and packaged for automatic feeding to their customer’s assembly process. That success gave them the confidence to add insert placement to another cell, increasing efficiency and productivity and allowing human operators to be reassigned for more challenging tasks. To date, the company has installed five cells, each more complex than the last, ensuring quality and productivity and allowing them to bring added value to their customers. Solution by Sepro answers the automation requirements of plastic injection-molding companies around the world. “We work together with the customer to support their projects from initial concept through engineering and manufacturing and, finally, to installation and production optimization,” concludes Jean-Michel Renaudeau. “Sepro is already a trusted supplier of robots for all kinds of injection-molding machines and we initiated the Solution by Sepro program to demonstrate that are also an ideal partner for automation projects.” Sepro Robotique was one of the first companies in the world to develop Cartesian beam robots for injection-molding machines, introducing its first CNC controlled “manipulator” in 1981. Today, Sepro is one of the largest independent sellers of Cartesian robots.