Learn how one of the nations’s leading manufacturers of boxed chocolates put together a plan with ICR Services to get their failing Adept 840 robots back to operational condition.
The Problem
When your only employee with knowledge of Adept robots leaves…
The plant had a single maintenance person who had been working their Adept robotic repairs for years and was the only person with any knowledge on how to maintain the very old and obsolete fleet of Adept 840 robots.
In early 2019 the person left the company, leaving the remaining maintenance team to figure it out by themselves.
The Solution
Crafting a road map for success, together.
After meeting with key stakeholders and putting together a plan, ICR Services got to work immediately. Getting their failing Adept robots back to operational condition was priority one and understandably so.
- Replaced an old-style hard drive to a newer solid-state version for each robot.
- Discussed various card functions (signature, graphic, joint interface boards, etc.) to better help customer in future troubleshooting.
- Improved calibration procedures and reduced process time after a thorough step by step review.
- Updated all settings and saved them to this week’s date. Machines are old and were originally programmed in the 90’s. The date settings before were limited and ended at 2003 but are now set to go as far as 2026.
- Reviewed current Adept robot manuals and showed them which one’s they’ll need for future troubleshooting.
- Taught maintenance how to make proper backups and where to store them – an absolute must for quickly recovering from an unexpected downtime event.
Learn 4 other proven practices for a quick and less stressful downtime recovery process. Complimentary, of course.
Adept Robot Programming
The sensor wouldn’t detect a box in position if one were to travel upside down onto the robot conveyor.
- Before:
In order to remove the box, the line would have to be turned off and the robot would have to be in END CYCLE model. This took time and could be a safety hazard if the operator were to remove the box without first stopping the machine. - Now:
The robot now receives the message of NO BOX and will quickly swing over to pick up the upside-down box and reject it without adding any unwanted downtime.
- Before:
Upon the completion of successfully repairing three of their Adept 840 robots, our team put together a training curriculum and schedule to get the maintenance team up to speed on their equipment and software knowledge.
Step 1
- Overview of systems components
- Controller control panel and status indicators overview
- Teach pendant navigation tips
- Coordinate systems
- Efficient jog methods and tips
Step 2
- Fault recovery and alarm history
- System troubleshooting
- Mastering and calibration methods
- File utilities, backups and restore functions
- Backing up programs and files overview
Step 3
- Vision / camera hardware tips
- Root cause troubleshooting methods
- Procedures for setup, operation and recovery
- PM maintenance tips for both the manipulator and robot controller
The Result
A brief explanation is in order
The plant is operating near full capacity without having to spend additional dollars to update any of the existing systems.
It really was a lot of help finally getting an outsider here with true Adept robot experience. Our robots were actually in a lot better condition than I had expected. – Gabriel, 1st Shift Box Plant Manager
Plant personal now have good working knowledge on how to maintain the current fleet of legacy Adept 840 robots, and maintenance is able to run and maintain these systems on their own now without any outside assistance needed.
