Strato (Hexapod)

In 2016 the manufacturer of a railway equipment Strato addressed to Mikrolar company with the order for robotization of a production line on recovery of worn out parts. The Strato company wanted to transform completely technology process of recovery of worn-out carriage wheel pairs of cast steel.

Earlier wheel pairs acted and established by weight in ton every time when moving from section to section on a technology chain. In addition to inevitable danger of work with so heavy objects, total losses of preparatory and final time on each section were enormous.

Having got acquainted with problems of Strato company, specialists of Mikrolar company suggested to review completely all process of recovery of worn out parts.

Instead of applying a set of sections to accomplishment of separate technology transactions, the Mikrolar command offered a new robotic system into which it will be to load enough only once the recovered part, and then to remove it already in finished form. After installation of a part in adaptation the robot executes measurement with the help coordinate measurement machines to define provision of the center of a part.

When the center is found, additional measurements for assessment of degree of wear of wheel pair and determination of required volume of the built-up material are executed.

Upon termination of measurements a system transfers the received results to the welding robot who executes building up.

Then the robot goes into action again. He executes a number of measurements, controlling result of operation of the welding robot. Having remembered the revealed errors, the robot of Mikrolar company selects the suitable cutting tool and eliminates inaccuracies of building up with milling.

I do not know exact digits — the representative of Mikrolar Mike Fortier says, - but I can tell with confidence that our robot sharply reduced terms of recovery of parts in Strato company

Radical change of the principles of work of a production line and successful use of the robot allowed Fortye and his specialists to implement the new, earlier not existing method of recovery of parts.

All of us still are at the initial stage — Fortye notes. - Similar production lines it is operated less than at one hundred enterprises so far, and it will be required to execute some more hundreds of traditional operation cycles until somebody at last tells: listen, we should install this new robotic system too!