FEATURE ON ROBOTS AND AUTOMATION

Welding robots aid digitisation at automotive plant

Panasonic Factory Solutions has enabled automotive manufacturer Thyssenkrupp Bilstein, a global specialist in automotive shock absorbers, to digitise its damper shopfloor in Romania utilising Panasonic’s Tawers G4 welding robot systems. The Tawers G4 will upgrade and replace two older welding robot cells, which after a decade of reliable operation are now coming to end-of-life. One of these welding robot cells has been completely upgraded to the G4 System, with its de-installed components used as spare parts to prolong the life of the second-oldest robot cell.

As one of the biggest employers in Romania’s Sibiu county, Thyssenkrupp Bilstein manufactures OEM damper assemblies and components for the automotive aftermarket sector. Panasonic’s Tawers G4 Welding Robot System enables Thyssenkrupp Bilstein to increase speed, flexibility and usability on its production line, helping it to maintain a crucial competitive advantage and achieve its digitisation goals.

In total, six Panasonic Tawers welding robot systems are operating in the plant. The G4 features increased controller processing speeds, and optimised communication between the controller and the robot. When compared with previous models, the newly integrated transformer has enabled the G4 to be smaller, saving space and costs without compromising reliability. Furthermore, the G4’s teach pendant touchscreen simplifies programming on the production line.

The Tawers G4 features its DTPS offline programming software, enabling remote digital access to real time production and system operating data. This means engineers can reprogram all parts or some of the parts of the welding process while the robot is still running in production. Undertaking these activities outside of the shopfloor provides flexibility and saves a huge amount of time.

More information https://eu.connect.panasonic.com

ABB plans to spin off its robotics division

ABB will launch a process to decide on the 100% spin-off of its robotics division. The intention is for the business to start trading as a separately listed company during Q2 2026. The board believes listing ABB Robotics as a separate company will optimise both companies’ ability to create customer value, grow and attract talent. Both will benefit from a more focused governance and capital allocation.

ABB Robotics says there are limited business and technology synergies between the ABB Robotics business and other ABB divisions, with different demand and market characteristics. The division believes this change will support value creation in both the ABB Group and in the separately listed pure play robotics business. The company will be listed with a strong capital structure, is well invested with a solid cash flow profile and operates through its local-for-local set-up with regional manufacturing hubs in Europe (Sweden), Asia (China) and the Americas (United States).

The ABB Robotics division has approximately 7,000 employees. With 2024 revenues of $2.3bn it represented about 7% of ABB Group revenues and had an Operational EBITA margin of 12.1%.

If shareholders decide in favour of the proposal, the spin-off is planned to be done through a share distribution, whereby ABB Ltd’s shareholders will receive shares in the company to be listed (working name ‘ABB Robotics’) as a dividend in-kind in proportion to their existing shareholding.

As from the first quarter of 2026, the machine automation division, which together with ABB Robotics currently forms the robotics and discrete automation business area, will become a part of the process automation business area, where the customer value creation ability in divisions will benefit from technology synergies for software and control technologies, for example towards hybrid industries.

More information www.abb.com

Plant ‘wheely’ impressed with FANUC service

Thanks to its service agreement with FANUC, The Walsall Wheelbarrow Company is confident it can reliably deliver the quality craftsmanship that customers have come to expect. Since switching to FANUC for servicing its fleet of 14 robots, the business has discovered the discernible difference that preventative maintenance and thorough servicing can make to production continuity and the ability to guarantee timely fulfilment of orders.

The Walsall Wheelbarrow Company has 14 FANUC robots in total: 11 R-2000iA models and three ARC Mate welding robots. It originally had a contract with a third-party company to service its robot fleet but was growing increasingly dissatisfied with the level and quality of support it was receiving.

“We were concerned that in the event of any of the machines going wrong, the support simply wasn’t there to get us back up and running quickly,” explains Jonathan Thacker, operations director at The Walsall Wheelbarrow Company.

The company approached FANUC to see what it could offer and was pleasantly surprised by the breadth, scope and robustness of its service contracts, which are designed around a preventative maintenance approach. The Walsall Wheelbarrow Company took out a three-year contract under which FANUC engineers perform annual checks of each system. During these visits, they carry out a thorough inspection of robot and controller condition, teach pendant cable, internal harness and robot connectors. They assess the robots for excessive noise and vibration, and check cable connections, cooling fans, power supplies, transformer tappings and emergency stop operation.

“Under this contract, our robots get a full MOT and a thorough clean, and we get an in-depth report stating what needs to be replaced or upgraded,” says Thacker.

More information www.fanuc.eu

SEAT chooses Hexagon’s digital twin technology

Hexagon has expanded its collaboration with automotive manufacturer SEAT, building upon a 25-year partnership. The companies have signed a strategic agreement that aims to deepen the digital transformation of SEAT, focusing on the digitalisation of vehicle components, the management of digitised information and advanced process simulation.

The agreement will enable SEAT to optimise its production, making decisions on adjustments to its processes in real time. Hexagon has role has been instrumental, implementing SEAT’s measurement and quality control systems for many years. Now through the extended collaboration, the joint project team will integrate a digital twin that applies metrology data with process simulations to predict outcomes and improve manufacturing efficiency. The solution will make use of innovative systems to digitise the car body and its components, manage their data, and provide reports and analytics that help production personnel drive efficiency and reduce costs.

The collaboration is based on three fundamental pillars: the digitalisation of the manufactured parts of the vehicle, the management of digitised information and the simulation of processes.

SEAT relies on Hexagon’s quality inspection and 3D digitisation solutions, which it has implemented in its inspection and manufacturing processes for body components. Under the new agreement, Hexagon’s PRESTO system will fully automate the high-precision 3D laser scanning of the entire body with high-speed robotic inspection, allowing every detail of the car to be measured and evaluated in real-time.

The second pillar of the agreement is the management of digitised information, which uses Hexagon’s eMMA data management, quality planning and analytics platform, while thirdly, Hexagon’s simulation solutions allow SEAT to optimise production and adjust its production settings using a virtual prototype of the product, speeding up the process of fine-tuning the production methods that will be used in series manufacturing.

More information www.hexagon.com

Automated prismatic machining cuts lead times

As an OEM specialising in the design and production of equipment for oil heating and diesel tank applications, as well as being a subcontract engineering firm, Atkinson Equipment has reduced lead-times following investment in a Brother Speedio U500Xd1 five-axis machining centre equipped with Tezmaksan CubeBox automation from Whitehouse Machine Tools.

Adam Walford, engineering group sales manager at Atkinson Equipment, says: “We’ve typically halved lead-times from 12 weeks down to six for complex subcontract parts and reduced them even further when making components for our own products, say from a month down to one week.

He continues: “Since automating the milling side of the business, we’ve also seen a reduction in the bottleneck we previously had when parts arrive from our turning section for prismatic machining. Our ability to get product out of the door to our customers is through the roof. It’s helping us to win new business in the subcontract area, as well as to grow our OEM division.”

Based in Wiltshire, Atkinson Equipment is required to manufacture large volumes of parts for its own refuelling and liquid transfer products, which it has been doing for over 50 years. It also needs to produce a high mix of smaller volumes for the subcontracting division, which has been running for half that time, but which is growing rapidly. This dual role places significant demands on its manufacturing capabilities and was pivotal in the investment in the automated Brother-Tezmaksan cell.

“It was quite daunting at first taking on a completely new piece of technology like this, but we were confident with the support that we would get from Whitehouse and their ability to guide us through the process to where we are now.”

More information www.wmtcnc.com