4 Companies That Are Using Polishing and Buffing Robots
Robot polishing is a great way to improve safety, quality, and consistency of polished products. Both big and small businesses can use robots to improve their polishing tasks. Here are 7 companies that are already using robotic polishing.Get more news about
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Polishing and buffing are finishing tasks that improve the surface quality of a product. An abrasive is run over the material, making it smoother, shinier, and sometimes more sanitary.
Recently, robots have become increasingly more popular for polishing tasks. Their flexibility and large workspace means that they can be applied to a wide range of polishing applications. They are also easy to reprogram for completely new tasks (not necessarily polishing tasks) which would be impossible for an autonomous polishing machine.
Acme Manufacturing, on the other hand, is very real. They produce high quality metal finishing and — according their own website — are regarded as a world leader in robotic deburring, polishing and grinding. As a result, it makes sense that they use robot polishing.
The approach that Acme uses for robot polishing is to have a fixed, abrasive polishing wheel. The robot holds the workpiece and moves it into contact with the spinning abrasive. They have used this method for polishing metal bars, wheels, and door handles.
2. Paradigm Electronics — Speaker Buffing
One of only two companies on this list that are using collaborative robots for polishing. Paradigm Electronics manufactures loud speakers and subwoofers. They moved to cobot polishing when they realized that polishing the many layers of lacquer on each of their speakers was just too labor-intensive to achieve manually.
They use a UR10 cobot with a custom polishing end effector, as the application was developed before integrated cobot polishing solutions were available, as they are now. The robot's force control ensured that excessive force was not applied to the surface, which would heat and damage the lacquer. They were able to achieve a ROI in just 14 months.
3. WMF
German manufacture WMF specializes in tableware and cookware. For over a decade, they have been using robot polishing to buff the lids of their pressure cookers. Polishing is particularly important for cookware for two reasons. Firstly, it makes the metal more attractive which increases the perceived value of the product. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, it makes the stainless steel more sanitary by removing scratches that germs could live in.
Similar to the Acme solutions above, WMF's robotic solution involves the robot holding the product and moving it onto a spinning polishing abrasive. They also used robot to transfer polished products between stages in their process.
4. Walmart — Floors
Although this is not a manufacturing operation, supermarket chain Walmart recently announced that it is planning to use robots to polish the floors in its stores. The Auto-C is an autonomous guided vehicle. Using buffing tools, it drives around the store and polishes the floors.
Floor polishing is quite similar to polishing in manufacturing. The only real difference is in the type of robot used and, of course, the surface that is being polished. The important factors which affect the quality of the final polishing (e.g. type of abrasive, polishing strategy, speed, etc) are also applicable to polishing with a robot arm.
