Abstract

The current industrial revolution has increased the competition between manufacturing industries.
Manufacturing industries need to continuously improve their performance, meets the demand of
supply in a shorter lead time by producing a high-quality product, continuously develop and
implement innovative manufacturing practice, to sustain competitiveness in the market. Adapting to
the new development of technology into manufacturing gives flexibility and agility in running
production to satisfy the customer demand fluctuation and variations. Robotic solutions play an
important role in manufacturing to endeavors for competitive, safety, and maximum efficiency
advantage in the market. Efficient programming skills are required to achieve high flexibility for the
robot to execute various motions and tasks in a production environment. Offline programming allows
preparing the robot program remotely using software tools without connecting with the robot
physically and downloading to the robot controller later without interrupting production. ABB Robot
Studio is a software tool that can be used to prepare robot programs in offline mode and run
simulations. This software tool enables to simulate the production environment to program the robot
motion and determine cycle time.
In this project, simulation software has been used to optimize the robot motion and cycle time to
increase production output. Therefore, a case study was conducted at Dutch Lady Milk Industries
Berhad, a dairy-based product manufacturing industry to simulate the existing production system
ABB Robot Studio. The finding has shown the mapping of flow and process mapping of the robot cell
in Dutch Lady. The result and the challenges encountered while simulating have been discussed. The
conclusion has been derived to highlight the robot cycle optimization in the production environment
and achieve the objective of this project.

Company Background

The case company for this project is Dutch Lady Milk Industries Berhad, a dairy-based manufacturing
company in Malaysia. The company was started in the year 1963 as Pacific Milk Industries Sdn Bhd
which was a subsidiary of FrislandFoods to produce condensed milk. It was the first production
facility been launched outside the Netherlands. The company expands its manufacturing into dairy
products in the year 1968. The company was renamed Dutch Baby Milk Industries (Malaya) Berhad
in 1975 and changes its name to Dutch Lady Milk Industries (Malaya) Berhad in 2000. Dutch lady
been producing milk using UHT technology since the 1970s, they have continued in introducing new
products such as sterilized milk in 1983, chilled milk in 1986, fruit yogurt, and growing-up milk
products in 1988. Dutch lady Malaysia was listed as the leader in the market of growing up milk in
2011 by holding 40% of the market share. Dutch Lady uses the industrial robot in their production
line to secure the quality and production output. Automating the production line reduces ergonomics
risk, workload, and labor cost. The company is located in Petaling Jaya, was built on 432,619 sq ft
accommodating 7 production lines. About 45 machines have been installed and integrated via
automation to achieve the production target to produce 900,000 L of UHT milk per month.

Problem Statement

Rapid growth in industrial automation has become prominent in the manufacturing sector. The
implementation of industry 4.0 technology enables the manufacturing sector to enhance the
production environment of manufacturing. Robot systems in the manufacturing sector have evolved
rapidly, improving productivity and being an important part of business operation strategy. However,
with the increase in product variants, customer demand changes according to product development,
product packaging cosmetic innovation requires manufacturing industries to be more flexible in terms
of the production environment. In the case of robot cell in Dutch Lady was installed and
commissioned for fixed product SKU.
This scenario has been an obstacle for the organization to adjust the production line to a new variant
of product SKU. The simulation solution aims to analyze and study the robot design optimization by
increasing robot efficiency, cycle time, and robot system critical characteristics virtually. (1)
Simulation tool enables to test robot system capability, challenge the system on all possible scenarios
of the production environment to optimize the system and increase production output. (2) Data
analysis and process mapping via simulation tools provide an overview of production flow and
success rate of new product SKU implementation to the organization for decision making. In this
project, the aim is to integrate simulation solutions in the production environment to optimize the
robot system.

ABB IRB 660

The selected robot as commissioned in Dutch Lady for this project is IRB 660, which is one of the
ABB’s robot family. The robot comes in several versions, with different arm lengths and machining
handling capacity. As the robot can bend fully backward, the range of working is extended greatly,
and the robot can be well fitted into the dense production line. The IRB 660 is a dedicated palletizer
robot that comes with a 4-axis degree of freedom and 3.15 meter reach with a 250 kg payload which
makes the ideal robot for palletizing cartons, bags, bottles, and crates. The robot comes with an IRC5
controller and robot control software, RobotWare. The software supports every aspect of the robot
system such as motion control, development, and execution of application programs and
communication protocol.
The motion and load of the machine can be monitored using the built-in service information system.
The robot's active safety features protect the workers in the unlikely event of an accident and the robot
itself. Collision detection reduces the collision force significantly, especially when managing a high
payload. The active brake system controls the breaking while ensuring the robot maintains its path but
allows rapid recovery. The other way of programming is offline programming, where a real robot's
involvement is not necessary. Offline programming option benefits production downtime, increase in
productivity, and risk reduction (ABB, 2020). Figure 1 shows the ABB Robot which is used in this
project.

Figure 1: IRB 660 manipulator has 4-axis Figure 2: IRB 660 Robot Joint

Description Type of Motion Range of movement

 A Axis 1 Rotation +180° to -180°
B Axis 2 Arm +85° to -42°
C Axis 3 Arm +120° to -20°
D Axis 6 Turn +300° to -300°

Table 1: IRB 660 Robot DOF & Axes Motion

Block Diagram Explanation

Figure 3 Closed Loop Block Diagram

Controller
 Controller in a robot functions to control the movements of the industrial robot arm where it uses
the inputs and commands accordingly its output to ensure the system functioned in a controlled
manner.
 Existingly at the plant, the system uses ABB IRC5 controller where it has a handheld flex pendant
to control the operation. The IRC5 controller has 16 Digital Inputs and 16 Digital outputs as 24
Volts
 As in this operation the controller is used to execute the Robot program, communicates with the
external signal from PLC, controlling the end-effector operation and robot movement from pick to
place.

Figure 4 ABB IRC 5 Controller Figure 5 Recipe Loading To Controller

Actuator
  Actuators is a hardware device that converts command signals from a controller(IRC5) into
physical action. Actuators can be classified into three categories electric, hydraulic and
pneumatic.

Figure 6 Pneumatic Acting

 Current operation at the plant, the “end effector” is controlled through electric actuators that
are controlled with a solenoid valve(5/3 way). The solenoid valve receives 24V from the
controller output signal which then energizes and use compressed air as driving power to
extend/retract the cylinder stroke
 Figure 5 above shows how a Finger Module and Presser module at the end-effector works.
The finger module is used to pick the cotton from the feeding conveyor while Presser Module
holds the cotton during traveling by extending the cylinder which indirectly applies the
pressure on the cotton top to hold it.
 Reed switch is used at the cylinder to ensure the cylinder retract and extend as per the
command from the controller so that the cotton is arranged on a pallet as per the recipe format
 Current recipe format used in the line
 Carton box 1000ml(6x4) 336 L x 156 W x 131 H
 Carton box 1000ml (4x6) 261 L x 216 W x 114 H

Figure 7 Cotton Arrangement on Pallet Figure 8 Overview of the Gripper

Plant/System(Flow Chart explanation)

 Based on the flow chart developed the robot system has several signal exchanges with PLC.
This is because the cotton feeding conveyor is controlled by a PLC and it’s a need to have a
signal mapping to ensure pick and place of cotton from the conveyor to a pallet is well
coordinated.
 Figure 9 and Figure 10 shows the Mapping signal between the PLC and Robot

Figure 9 Interlock Robot To PLC Figure 10 Interlock PLC To Robot

 Listed in the table below is a general flow of control that have developed on the flow
chart

Steps Operation Task Time (s)

1 Robot to Home Position 5
2 Robot to Pre pick Position 2
3 Gripper to Pick Orientation 3
4 Waiting Time of Robot 5
5 Robot to Pick Position 3
6 Waiting Time of Robot 5
7 Gripper Close-Pick Carton 3
8 Waiting Time of Robot 5
9 Robot to Safe Zone Position 2
10 Robot to Pre Placing Position 2
11 Gripper to Placing Orientation 3
12 Robot to Placing Position 3
13 Waiting Time of Robot 5
14 Gripper Open-Release carton 3
15 Robot to Safe Zone Position 2
16 Robot to Home Position 5
Table 2: Robot Sequence mapping

Sensors
  A wide variety of sensors are available for collecting data from the manufacturing
process for use in feedback control. The function of a sensor in a closed-loop system
is to detect the physical effect and provide the information to the controllers.
 In this operation several sensor feedback checked by the controller to ensure the close
loop system works accordingly starts from the gripper cylinder position detection up
to the conveyor cotton availability.

Signal From To FormatFunction

Carton Palletizer Robot Digital
Input to the robot from
Ready System System I/O palletizer system to pick
carton when in pre-pick
position.
Pallet Palletizer Robot Digital Input to the robot from the
Ready System System I/O palletizer system to place
the carton when in safe
zone and gripper in closed
status.
Stacking Robot Palletizer Digital Input to the palletizer
Complete System System I/O system from robot once
complete stacking and
robot in home position.
End Palletizer Robot Digital Input to the robot from the
Production System System I/O palletizer system to end
production
Table 3: Signal exchange between Robot and Palletizer system

Figure 11 Sensor at Gripper Figure 12 Sensor at Conveyor

Simulation software of Palletizing Robot ABB IRB-660

The Robot Studio is software that is used for creating offline programming and simulation testing.
The software comes with some simulation packages that can be used to perform activities such as
offline programming and optimization without disturbing the real-time production.

The Robot Studio simulation helps to simulate the programming with palletizing powerpac package.
This palletizing powerpac package is added on software that uses to simulate palletizing motion.

In this simulation software, there is having some palletizing standard functionality that uses to create
palletizing layer patterns. The palletizing pattern can assign to the simulation section. After being
assigned this, add the robot model into the simulation to test the robot motion functionality. This
simulation consists of ABB IRB-660, Pallet conveyor, and box feeding conveyor.

Simulation Methods

Create a base and tool

1 coordinate system to configure
the robot into simulation
 Create the box and pallet with
2
actual dimensions

Configure palletizing pattern

3 for each layer which is odd and
even layer

Configure end effector which is

4
a gripper for robots.

Set robot zero position, picking

and placing position by
5
reference to the base coordinate
system.

Download the configuration

6 into the simulator to check
errors.
 Start palletizing simulation if
7
there no any errors.

The simulation continuously

8 runs to complete the target
layer.

Offlin Motion Programming for Palletizing

Generally, the palletizing pattern create into routine format in the programming . The picture
below shows the pick and place coordinate system which x,y, z a,b,and c reference to the
base coordinate or world coordinate system.

The picture below shows the x,y coordinates and rotation of the gripper for each placing. The
motion calculation will be generated automatically by robot.

The format below is used to generate palletizing pattern calculation for each recipe.
Discussion

Figure 13: Cycle of the robot before and after

The existing sequence of the robot system is directly impacted by the robot waiting time and
additional motion steps in the robot program. The robot sequence has been simulated to reprogram the
sequence to minimize cycle time which improves the line speed. The reprogramming of the robot
based on the scenario is possible through ABB RobotStudio.
Thru simulation, the step has been able to decrease from 16 steps to 7 steps as shown in Figure 20.
The robot cell's KPIs have increased from 1500 cartons per hour to 2000 cartons per hour after
implementing the sequence modification as shown in Figure 10. Further, the robot can be optimized
with the help of a simulation tool by trying different scenarios such as speed, configuration, and
movement.

Forward Kinematics in General

To mathematically model a robot and hence determine the position and orientation of the end effector
with respect to the base or any other point, it is necessary to assign a global coordinate frame to the
base of the robot and a local reference frame at each joint. Then, the Denavit-Hartenberg analysis
(DH) is presented to build the homogeneous transformations matrices between the robot joint axes
These matrices are a function of four parameters resulted from a series of translations and rotations
around different axes. The illustration of how frame {i} is related to the previous frame {i −1} and the
description of the frame parameters are shown in Figure 1 below, [3].

Figure 14. The description of frame {i} with respect to frame {i −1}.

From Figure 1, the modified D-H parameters can be described as:

αi-1: Twist angle between the joint axes Zi and Zi-1 measured about Xi-1.
ai-1: Distance between the two joint axes Zi and Zi-1 measured along the common normal.
θi: Joint angle between the joint axes Xi and Xi-1 measured about Zi.
di: Link offset between the axes Xi and Xi-1 measured along Zi.

Thus, the four Transformations between the two axes can be defined as:

After finishing the multiplication of these four transformations, the homogeneous transform can be
obtained as:

Frames assignment, block diagram and orientations are shown below in Figure 15.
 Figure 15. Rrames assignment, block diagram and orientations.

Inverse Kinematics in General

Inverse kinematics is used to calculate the joint angles required to achieve the desired position and
orientation in the robot workspace. As compared to the forward kinematics of the robot manipulator
the inverse kinematic problem is difficult to solve. The inverse kinematics robotics problem focuses
on kinematic analysis of robotics manipulator. There are some problems associated with the Ikin for
example Non-linear equations, the multiple solutions existence, possibility of non-existence solutions
and mechanism singularities. In order to determine solution all possible formations to move from end
effector position to base position, one must compute the movements associated with each joint
variable. In case of FKin the problem has only one solution as the parameters of the end effector are
determined uniquely. However, in case of the IKin the problem has several solutions and these needs
to be derived very carefully. There are both conventional and in conventional approach available to
find the solution. In general, there are two methods of solution, the analytical and geometrical
approaches.

Robot ABB IRB 660 - Denavit-Hartenberg analysis (DH)

Joint αi-1 ai-1 di θi

1 -90 300 800 Θ1
2 0 1280 0 Θ2
3 -90 1610 0 Θ3
4 0 0 240 Θ4

Trajectory Planning

The robot configuration needs to be selected by considering issues such as reach ability, collision
avoidance, minimizing configuration transition, etc because the inverse kinematics of industrial robots
usually have multiple solutions in motion. By utilizing the CAD model, the path can be automatically
generated in the Robot Studio. The cycle time can even be reduced in Robot Studio by optimizing
acceleration, speed, etc.
In this application, ABB robot conducts point to point motion to set initial and final points which is
picking and placing point only. The intermediate path between picking and placing has been
controlled by robot controller. ABB Robot joint interpolated motion calculated by controller to
analyze which joint slower than others. The each axis of robot has different type of velocity;
acceleration and deceleration during execute path motion.

Challenges

 Sensor attachment was the biggest challenge faced while simulating the robot cell were needed to
synchronize each signal used in the robot cell. The signals were attached properly by collected
data and by debugging the program.
 To gain a more profound knowledge of robot working procedures and collect information
about the I/O signals debugging process was conducted. The process involves the creation of
a “toggle breakpoint”. This helps in stopping the programming at a particular breakpoint.

Conclusion

Dutch Lady currently using the traditional method of programming and the process was time-
consuming which is negatively impacting the production. This project has been done to evaluate the
potential of using a simulation tool to optimize the robot system and the benefits to the production
environment. The objective of the project is achieved by modeling out the process mapping which
gives an overview of robot steps that can be analyzed further to optimize the robot system. Via
simulation tools, the organization is able to conduct multiple scenarios to improve the production
system and the best scenario can be chosen without impacting production. Integrating the simulation
solution in the organization production environment can be conducted in several phases which enables
to achieve without any production downtime.