Samenvatting

The current configuration of the robotic stearate coating process only supports certain bead sizes, the rest is coated manually. The current configuration lacks capacity and requires a lot of maintenance due to the age of the used robots. To be able to support all bead sizes, increase the daily capacity, reduce operator stearate dust exposure, and to reduce maintenance cost, Michelin requested a redesign of the current system.
This report discusses the new design proposal for the stearate coating production cell. This is done on the basis of a cycle time study and corresponding robot simulations. A new gripping tool is designed, and a new robot manipulator is chosen. Furthermore, a recommendation is made for a cart conveyor system. And finally, a safety analysis was performed with corresponding mitigations.
A detailed robot simulation shows that the required daily capacity and cycle time can be reached with the proposed design. The gripping mechanism can pick up all bead sizes from the original production carts. All within the set budget.

The situation has changed during the project due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. This resulted in the project being continued virtually and no prototypes could be made.