MIMIC KIT

Robot Polishing Software

Amphenol

Nordbo Robotics’ advanced polishing software increases productivity with 70% by automating manual polishing processes at Amphenol.

The automated robot polishing process using Nordbo Robotics advanced polishing software at Amphenol.

What Challenges Did The Customer Face?

Amphenol was in need of a solution to optimize both their rough and fine polishing processes of MIM (Metal Injected Moulding) parts as they were offered to produce the hinge of the Apple AirPod casing. This gave them the following challenges:

Increasing demand and high quality requirements
A shortage of qualified workers, making it hard to grow with the demand
Low repeatability causing high scrap volume, making it hard to be profitable
Using specialized machinery required a high investment and the machines were only useable during the lifetime of the produced product
Hard to find automated solutions that can create the same finish as a skilled polisher

How Did Nordbo Robotics Address These Challenges?

To solve these challenges Nordbo Robotics used the unique MIMIC technology to record the motion of a skilled worker during manual processing of the part, which makes it possible to record the optimal path and the necessary applied force to “mimic” the exact same finish a skilled worker produces at the top of his performance. The recorded program is then transferred to one or multiple robot cells, to make it easily scalable to the required demand, and executed with precise force control which is monitored to get direct feedback on the operating performance.

Using the skills of the worker and the repeatability of the robot together with Nordbo Robotics polishing software and force control, gave Amphenol the following results:

Increased productivity and throughput with 70% compared to manual processing
Increased quality ratio with an average of 35%
Return Of Investment (ROI) of 1,5 year
Decreasing scrapped material caused by faulty processing
Improve workplace ergonomics and safety within post-processing department

The Nordbo software was implemented using the following hardware set-up:

1x Manual teach station with MIMIC- & Force recording
4x UR5 robots
8x Nachi MZ07 robots
12x Nordbo Controller
12x NRS-6 Force Torque sensors
12x robot polishing cells with automated in- & outfeed

“Nordbo Robotics brought us great advantages in relation to competitiveness and technology, which gave Amphenol Phoenix the possibility to gain additional projects for companies as Apple and Microsoft.”

Mr. Huang – GM at Amphenol Phoenix Hangzhou

Recording of manual polishing process

Testing the recorded polishing process

About Amphenol

Amphenol was founded in 2001 and is one of the largest manufacturers of interconnect products in the world with several Forbes500 customers such as Google, Apple, and Microsoft.

Website: www.amphenol-hzp.com