Feige Filling

Industry:
Others
    Location:
    Bad Oldesloe, Germany
      Customer Objectives:
      • Locate different container stoppers, despite variable positioning on the shipping pallet
      • Read identification labels on every container to ensure the right containers are located on the pallet
      Key Results:
      • Protected staff from handling critical substances by automating filling process and completely enclosing the filling area
      • Achieved new speed targets, ensuring rapid opening and filling of containers
      • Avoided incorrect assignment of filling material, reducing costs and verifying process reliability
      Cognex Solution:

      Automate dangerous and toxic filling with Cognex vision

      How do you guarantee people’s safety when dealing with dangerous or toxic materials? Not only that-, how do you automate a dangerous filling process while guaranteeing the right materials go to the right place at the right quantity? For years, Feige Filling has been supplying industrial machines used to fill different containers. The company developed a new robotic filling technology equipped with Cognex vision that opens up new opportunities for filling with regard to safety, speed and cost effectiveness. Equipped with an In-Sight® camera plus PatMax® technology, the “RobotFiller”, a robot with a four or six-jointed arm, locate the different container stoppers for filling even when they arrive in various positions on the pallet.

      Vision tools that find and fill

      One of the RobotFiller's most important functions is to locate the stoppers with screw closures on the drums. As the stoppers are arranged off-centre at the edge of the drum lid, they tend to be in a different position on every pallet. Without a precision vision system, safe and rapid opening, filling and closing would not be possible. Cognex PatMax technology and In-Sight makes this process especially fast and reliable. This revolutionary tool for high-precision location of objects using pattern-matching technology reads and recognizes an enormous variety of patterns. Once the stopper is located, the filling process starts. The first step is for the RobotFiller to pick up a tool which it uses to remove the screw closures of the drums and put them down on a tray. It then changes tool and grips the filling valve to suit the filling job. This is the innovational step for the future of automatic filling of large containers on pallets. Without human intervention, RobotFiller can switch different filling valves and tools for further processing fully automatically, accelerating the filling process. In addition, the RobotFiller protects staff when critical substances are being handled, as the complete filling area can be enclosed and subjected to extraction. Following precisely calibrated filling, the jointed-arm robot switches tools again to pick up the stoppers and close the containers. With the drums filled, the pallet is ready to be transported by the conveyor belt.

      Safety in traceability — the right material for the right container

      Code-reading properties mean that the In-Sight vision system can detect every container. The information passed on to a safety system further up the chain ensures that the right containers for filling are located on the pallet. This plausibility check means that the In-Sight system increases process safety and helps save costs, as the incorrect assignment of filling material to container is ruled out. Plus, the rugged, robust characteristics of the In-Sight vision system are of real value in this kind of operating environment with regular exposure to toxic material and flammable substances.

      The benefits of the In-Sight vision system with the jointed-arm robot are obvious. Attached directly to the end of the robot arm and supported by eight LEDs arranged in a circle, the intelligent camera system ensures optimum processes.Plus, an intuitive GUI makes it easier for users to familiarize themselves with the system and doesn’t require additional verification using a PC.

      Just add vision — to get the most flexible filling system in the world

      Cognex real-time image detection means that the RobotFiller is among the most flexible filling systems in the world. Speed, cost savings, process reliability and above all increased protection for the operator make Feige Filling technology combined with innovative Cognex vision systems, a prime automation solution for the future.

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