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SDC faced a unique challenge: automating a medical device assembly process at a microscopic level previously handled manually by one of its customers.
According to Dan Belliveau, Lead Project Engineer at SDC, the minimal size of its parts made this manual assembly work difficult, tedious, and time-consuming. “We had an opportunity to automate the process to reduce the cycle time while improving the yield,” says Belliveau.
Dan Belliveau says the project’s main success was repeatedly moving the Meca500 to between 1μ and 2μ of accuracy and repeatability by operating it with SDC’s custom programming. “If we’re off by just one to two microns, we can miss parts,” he says. “We use many different robot brands here at SDC, and they’re all very reliable and very high-quality, but none can compete with the repeatability and the accuracy of Mecademic’s robots.”
One full assembly consisting of 73 parts and 48 welds is now built in 210 seconds — versus 1,200 when done manually. Alongside the increase in production throughput, they also achieved a higher consistency in product quality.
This machine allowed SDC’s customer to reallocate employees to better areas of the plant where their skills would be more valuable and meaningful.
