Materials Handling and

Storage
 Chapter Three

Production line equipment

By:-nebiyou G
 MATERIALS HANDLING AT THE
WORKPLACE(Production Line)
• Feeding of parts and components into
a machine for their processing and
taking them out is an important
activity in any discrete mass
manufacturing process.
• This is known as materials handling
at the workplace(production line).
 Cont’d
• Materials handling at the workplace
may be defined as the handling of
materials after it has been delivered
for use at the workplace and before
it is again picked up by some
conventional handling process and
equipment, to be removed to the next
operation.
 Cont’d
• Materials handling at the workplace has
long been neglected, possibly because they
appeared to be a minor part of the overall
system and does not always involve large or
expensive materials handling equipment.
• However, studies have proved beyond any
hesitation that in most of the
manufacturing operations, the handling of
individual jobs take more time than that
for processing the jobs.
 Cont’d
• The various activities at the workplace may be
grouped under following different phases:
(a) Preparatory: Handling of materials adjacent
to the workplace consists of
(i) bringing materials closer to or onto the
workplace or machine.
(ii) unwrapping, unpacking, untangling, cleaning
materials.
(iii) sorting or separating materials, re-arranging,
restacking etc.
(b) Feeding : Placing or directing materials closer
to work place or point of-use.
 Cont’d
(c) Positioning: Orienting materials in exact
location, placing into fixture, jig or machine.
(d) Manipulating: Handling of materials during
actual manufacturing operation.
(e) Removing: Taking material out of workplace
consisting of—
(i) taking out of jig, fixture etc.
(ii) keeping it at a position for moving to next
workplace.
(f) Transporting: Moving materials out of the
workplace to the next workplace. This is
generally traditional/conventional materials
handling.
 Cont’d
• The materials handling at workplace is not
only monotonous, fatiguing but involves
personal safety of the operators.
• Moreover, time that can be saved from
this handling time, directly increases
productivity of the manufacturing process.
• It is in this context industrial robots
have been increasingly used in materials
handling at the workplace.
 Robotic handling system
• Designed to move material, parts, tools,
or specialized devices through variable
programmed motions for the
performance of a variety of tasks.
 ROBOTS AND THEIR CLASSIFICATION

Robotic Institute of America (RIA) has

defined a robot as:
‘‘A robot is a reprogrammable,
multifunctional manipulator designed to
move material, parts, tools, or
specialized devices through variable
programmed motions for the performance
of a variety of tasks’’.
 Cont’d

• Out of the many possible industrial tasks

like
(i) spot welding,
(ii) arc welding,
(iii)materials handling,
(iv)spray painting,
(v) assembly of parts and
(vi) other tasks, materials handling is one
of major jobs in which industrial robots
are being used.
 Cont’d

• There is no scope here to go into much

details about robots.
This chapter will briefly discuss some of
the features which make robot a smart
material handling equipment, and some of
their specific applications.
Major Components of a Robot
Four common components of a robot are:
(a)The manipulator: The manipulator is the
body of a robot, made of a collection of
mechanical linkages connected at joints to
form an open-loop kinematic chain.
The manipulator is capable of movement in
various directions and does the work of
the robot.
It can conveniently be compared with the
arm of a human.
 Cont’d

At the joint, the individual link can either rotate

(revolute joint) or make translator motion
(prismatic joint) by means of electric motors
(servo or stepper) and hydraulic or pneumatic
cylinders.
Through a combination of motions of the joint,
the manipulator can achieve different desired
positioning and orientation.
A manipulator can have many joints up to 8, and a
robot manipulator with six joints (six degrees
of freedom) is considered quite versatile for
most the robot tasks.
 Cont’d

A manipulator generally has three

structural elements: the arm, the wrist
and the hand (end effectors).
The end effectors is individually
designed to grip individual tools or jobs,
and simulates palm of a human arm.
 Cont’d

(b) Sensory devices: These elements inform the

robot controller about status of the
manipulator.
These sensors may be (i) non visual or (ii) visual.
Non visual sensors provide information about
position, velocity, force etc. Connected with
manipulator motion.
The visual sensors are used for tracking an
object, its recognition and grasping. These are
comparable to senses like touch, vision etc.
 Cont’d

(c)The controller: Robot controllers generally

perform three function which are:
(i) Initiation and termination of motion of
different joints at desired sequence and specific
points.
(ii) Storage of positional and sequence data in
memory.
(iii) Interfacing the robot with outside world
through the sensors.
Generally a microcomputer or minicomputer acts as
the robot controller, and acts as the brain of
the robot.
 Cont’d

(d) The power conversion unit: This

component provides necessary power for
movement of the manipulator for doing
work. It can be electrical power source
with amplifiers to feed servo motors or
compressor or hydraulic power pack.
 Cont’d

With proper programming of the robot

controller, the manipulator can be made to
under go a desired sequence of motions of
linkages of the manipulator, repeatedly and
accurately and thus make the robot to
perform its desired task.
Another advantage of a robot is that by
changing the programme, the manipulator can
instantly change from one set of task to
another, thus making it a flexible and versatile
equipment.
 Classification of Robotic Manipulators

• Manipulators are generally classified in

two ways, one based on mechanical
configuration and the other based on
method of controlling individual joints.
 Classification by Configuration
(coordinate system)
(a) Cylindrical coordinate robots
(b) Spherical coordinate robots
(c) Cartesian coordinate robots
(d) Jointed arm (also called
articulated) robots
 ROBOTIC HANDLING APPLICATIONS
Materials handling by robots are of two
categories:
(i) Material transfer.
(ii) Machine loading and unloading.
Both these two categories are applicable
to the different phases of workplace
handling like feeding, positioning,
manipulating and removing.
 Cont’d
Material transfer: The task of moving a
part from one location to another
within the workplace is one of the
common applications for robots (pick-
and-place operations).
A slightly more complex operation of the
same category is palletisation or
depalletisation.
 Cont’d
Robot deposits to or takes from a new
position and height of the pallet in each
subsequent operation.
After the pallet/box is filled up or
emptied, the same way be moved by the
same or by a larger robot.
 Cont’d
Machine loading and/or unloading:
Robot centered machine cell is most
common example of this category of
application.
The workcell consists of one or more
production machines, the robot and some
material handling system for delivering
parts into or out of the workcell.
A mobile robot may also be employed for
this operation, though less common.
 Cont’d
Some of the processes in which robotic
loading/unloading is often used are:
Die-casting—unloading of parts and dipping
them in water bath for cooling.
Plastic moulding—unloading of injection
moulded parts.
 Cont’d
• Machining—loading raw blank and
unloading finished product. The end
effector should be designed to handle
sizes and shapes of both raw material and
finished product.
• Forging—loading raw stock to furnace,
unload hot material from furnace and
transfer to forging press and hold and
manipulate during forging.
 Cont’d

Press working—loading individual blanks

into press. However, when coiled strip is
fed, no robot is needed in the continuous
pressing operation.
Heat treatment—loading and unloading of
parts from a furnace.
 Cont’d

Robot feeding component to CNC machine

 Cont’d
• Depending on handling and processing time, one
robot may be used for handling materials to
and from more than one machine.
Cont’d
 Area of Application
1. Manufacturing Industry
2. Building Construction Industry
3. Heavy Construction Industry
4. Mining Industry
5. Food Industry
6. Automotive and Transportation
Industry
 Thank you
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