Assembly Automation: Volume 13 Issue 4

Scheduling Automated Assembly Systems

David Little, Andrew Hemmings

Today's market environment is characterized by an increasing demand for greater product variety. This has inevitably led to decreased product life cycle and forced volume…

Robots and Machine Vision in Packaging

Thomas D. Jerney

It may have just one hand, and much less dexterity than the manual operator, but the typical robot being installed is performing tasks which were not possible to automate just a…

Mechatronic Innovation in Switch Assembly

Sally Butler

When leading connector and terminal manufacturer Grote & Hartmann was awarded the contract to manufacture a new switch module for Black & Decker's Dustbuster® hand‐held vacuum…

Parts Tracking in Automated Assembly

Larry E. Stall

Assembly automation systems without parts tracking are rapidly becoming a rarity. Data requirements range from simple inprocess status (e.g. accept/reject, model) to full product…

The Array Manipulator — A Generic Material Handling Device

P.P. Ciufo, C.D. Cook, F. Naghdy

While robots have proved to be ideal for the manipulation of single articles accurately in three dimensions, they are not as cost‐effective in industry for tasks which require…

The DFA House

Hubert K. Rampersad

The assembly is often a weak link in the production process. It is an enterprise activity which is responsible for a substantial part of the production costs and the throughput…