The Customer Challenge
Penna Flame, a third-generation family-owned manufacturer, was grappling with significant challenges in its packaging process. The core issue? Manually handling heavy, oil-coated metal parts, each weighing about 37 lbs. These parts were arranged in a fixed pattern within bins, 72 parts per bin, requiring precise orientation.
Their challenges were multifaceted:
- Labor Retention & Scheduling: The physically demanding nature of the job, involving tasks like picking, spraying, flipping, and stacking heavy, oil-coated parts, made it incredibly difficult to find and retain workers. The job was universally disliked, leading to severe labor retention issues.
- Safety Concerns: Constant handling of these heavy, oil-coated parts presented a significant risk of worker injuries, a continuous concern for management.
- Manual Process Inefficiencies: The manual process involved multiple handling points and steps for each part, and even slight misalignment made both manual and automated picking unreliable, limiting scalability and consistency.
The CapSen Solution: Intelligent 3D Vision for Seamless Automation
CapSen Robotics stepped in with CapSen PiC, our proprietary 3D vision, motion planning, and control software, to tackle Penna Flame's complex problems. Our solution was designed to detect the exact pose and orientation of parts, ensuring reliable and precise handling even with slight displacements.
Key aspects of the CapSen PiC implementation included:
- Advanced Motion Planning and Collision Avoidance: CapSen's proprietary algorithms harmonized robot joints despite the large robot size and limited working envelope, ensuring smooth and efficient operation in a constrained space.
- Accurate and Consistent Picking: The system accurately picked all 72 parts in the correct sequence and orientation, eliminating inconsistencies and unreliability through human intervention.
- Integrated Oil Dipping Process: CapSen PiC seamlessly integrated with Penna Flame's existing manufacturing process, allowing parts to be dipped in oil post-pick, maintaining the required cycle time and consistency.
- Intuitive User Interface: According to Michael Orr, VP of Operations at Penna Flame, "The UI is super easy to use and can be learned quickly." He added that operating the system is as simple as pushing a button to start, as the software calculates and pre-plans the entire path.
Measurable ROI and Enhanced Operational Efficiency
The deployment of CapSen PiC delivered significant, measurable results for Penna Flame:
- Enhanced Safety and Reduced Strain: Workers were removed from hazardous and physically demanding tasks, drastically reducing physical strain and eliminating safety risks.
- Full Automation and Increased Throughput: While a human operator might complete individual parts in 45 seconds, this pace was unsustainable. The automated system, operating at a steady cycle time of 75 seconds, ran continuously and consistently throughout the entire workday, resulting in higher overall throughput and superior efficiency. This automation allowed an entire pallet of 72 parts to be processed in as little as 1.5 hours, contributing to a stable production rate of 14,000 parts per year.
- Measurable ROI and Cost Savings: Penna Flame has a history of adopting robotic automation, with systems running reliably for over a decade. The integration of CapSen PiC further enhances their processes by reducing operator involvement, streamlining workflows, and minimizing manual interruptions, leading to substantial ROI through labor savings, increased throughput, and reduced downtime.
- Workforce Impact and Culture Shift: Two operators previously assigned to the demanding manual process were redeployed into more rewarding roles operating advanced machines, addressing Penna Flame's skilled labor shortage while improving morale. Employees now view automation as a path to professional development and business success.
- Long-term Operational Efficiency: CapSen PiC enabled Penna Flame, an SMB, to successfully adopt scalable robotics, significantly improving their long-term operational efficiency and competitiveness.
Looking Ahead
Penna Flame sees further opportunities for optimization with CapSen's technology, specifically the introduction of a "model-free" capability that would allow new parts to be scanned and the best picking path recommended, further enhancing flexibility and efficiency.
CapSen Robotics is proud to have partnered with Penna Flame, transforming a challenging manual process into a highly efficient, safe, and profitable automated operation, demonstrating the power of intelligent 3D vision in real-world industrial applications.
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