University of Cincinnati College of Engineering and Applied Science Mechanical Engineering Technology Fall 2012

20 MET5053 Manufacturing Automation Project II-Option 2 Robotic Rotary Palletizer Cell Design for Frozen Seafood Operation
One of the largest seafood production facilities in Alaska sustains a year-round frozen seafood operation capable of processing more than 3 million pounds of multiple species per day. The daily production varies depending upon the season, with products that include Alaska king and snow crab, pacific halibut, and Alaska pollock, including frozen fillets, blocks, and surimi, as well as fishmeal and oil. Right now the company relies upon operators working in a brutal, 20-degree below zero freezer environment to manually palletize cases of frozen product fed from multiple lines. Due to the harsh conditions and the moderate speed of the lines, the quality of the stacked pallets was sometimes low, as operator struggled to keep up. The company wants to use robot to replace operators for this application. You are assigned the job to design an automated robotic rotary palletizer cell. This robot cell should be capable of handling up to eight different product SKUs (cases) at one time. The cases come from one infeed conveyor via barcode reader. After cases are identified at the conveyor the robot places them in their specific zone on the turntable. Once a pallet is complete, the turntable rotates until it is in-line with the discharge conveyor. The robot should continue to palletize while this is happening, even though everything has been realigned to a new position. The application is illustrated in the figure below.

University of Cincinnati College of Engineering and Applied Science Mechanical Engineering Technology Fall 2012

1. Robot selection: Use the root specification resources in the lecture notes, internet and manufacturing handbooks to select three robots from three vendors that would work in this rotary palletizing application. List all vendor names, robot model numbers, descriptions, and specifications. Indicate which robot selection criteria are used in the selection process. Recommend one of the three models of robots for the application, and justify your recommendation. 2. Machine selection/Design: Select or design the conveyors for the infeed and discharge, and Turntable with eight positions. List their specifications. Describe their working mechanism. Select proper motors and drives and sensors needed to accomplish the mechanism. 3. Work cell design: Draw a top view of the rotary palletizer cell illustrating the footprint of all machines and the work envelope of the robot. Draw a front or side view (whichever is more making sense) of the cell. CAD drawings with dimensions are required. Also determine the work cell floor space needed for the application. 4. Work cell design analysis: Describe the work process for robot and all machines. Describe the performance of each machine and robot, including the cycle time for each machine, the cycle time for the whole process, maintenance requirement, safety concerns, quality issues, productivity, and product characteristics. Draw timing diagram (synchrogram, idle 0 active 1) for the work cell. 5. Controller selection: Define the tasks point for the robot (end effector positions, x-yz). Describe the path control strategy. Select a controller and controller drives for selected path control. Draw a sequential positioning (robot movement sequence) chart for the robot. Draw the controller architecture diagram. Notes: . Make reasonable assumptions for the case dimension, surface finish, weight, size and shape, and case orientation. . Make reasonable assumptions for grippers working mechanism and function. . Make reasonable assumptions for other issues related to this application. . Use the same format as used for Senior Project report for this project report. . Illustrate your project with 3D animation of the process in the work cell.