April
2008, Blacksburg, VA — ESS Technologies, Inc., custom designed and
built a complete end-to-end solution for the high speed assembly and
packaging of diagnostic test kits. The system integrates material
handling, product feeding and packaging equipment, and incorporates
automated pick and place modules, multi-axis FANUC robots, vision,
and inspection.
The system assembles diagnostic test kits, visually inspects them,
and loads completed test kits into trays at a rate of 45 test kits
per minute. The complete system integrates bowl feeders with low
profile flat belt conveyors, which deliver the cassette tops and
bottoms to pick-and-place devices. A puck carrier moves the cassette
top around the indexing machine. Automated reel feeders, cutters and
vacuum pick-and-place devices place a piece of reactive membrane in
the top cassette in the correct orientation. The bottom cassette
piece is conveyed and picked in the same manner as the top cassette,
and the two pieces are pressed together. The completed test kit is
rotated 180° to allow a vision system to verify correct
placement of the reactive membrane. Incorrect test kits are rejected
prior to loading into trays using the TaskMate™ Robotic System.
Within the loading system, conveyors move empty trays in and full
trays out. A FANUC LR Mate
100iC robot with a quick change ESS-designed end effecter removes
completed test kits from the assembly machine and places them in a
tray. As the assembled test kit moves to the packaging process, the
full trays are unloaded using a second FANUC robot and TaskMate™
System, which is also integrated with conveyors for
automated full-tray-infeed and empty-tray-discharge through the
robotic loading cell. This second robotic loading system
incorporates a Model 430iC which uses FANUC’s integrated vision and
line tracking to pick assembled test kits from the tray and place
them into a continuous motion flow wrapper infeed. The
test kit is collated with a moisture-absorbing desiccant pack and
pouched to complete the packaging process.
About ESS Technologies, Inc.
ESS Technologies, Inc., founded in 1993, specializes in complete
packaging line design, manufacture, and integration. Our product
expertise includes monoblock fillers/cappers, robotic palletizing
systems, horizontal/vertical cartoners, horizontal/vertical case
packers, tube fillers, overwrappers, custom designed solutions, and
integrated robotics. Engineered for reliability and efficiency, ESS
Technologies’ products offer you tomorrow’s packaging technology
today.
Contact Information
Kim Norris, Sales Project Coordinator
ESS Technologies, Inc.
3160 State Street
Blacksburg, VA 24060
(540) 961-5716
knorris@esstechnologies.com
www.esstechnologies.com
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