Major Advance in Automated Assembly Combines High Speed and Flexibility

KINGSTON, ONTARIO, CANADA (November 26, 2013) – Transformix Engineering has launched CNC Assembly™, patent-pending new technology for the flexible high-speed assembly of small parts. CNC Assembly™ responds to manufacturers’ ever increasing need to get more productivity and versatility from their production equipment.  .

According to Ken Nicholson, Director of Technology at Transformix, “Manufacturing plants demand greater output per unit of time and space. These objectives have been tough to achieve with assembly machines, since they are typically customized to specific products. This means companies usually have relatively low speed, specialized machines spread across their factories, consuming a lot of expensive floor space. If they do install high-speed machines, they are invariably for high-volume, long-running products, since high rates have always been incompatible with flexibility and adaptability. Our goal in developing CNC Assembly™ was to give manufacturers a standard machine that could run at high rates (200 to 600+ parts per minute, for example), but that also had the quick-change versatility to run a range of different products.”

To achieve this combination of speed and flexibility, CNC Assembly™ draws on two well-established technologies, robotics and “continuous motion,” the latter long used to meet the very high production rates required in industries such as bottling and consumer packaging.  According to Nicholson, “We use continuous motion techniques to deliver parts to the assembly tooling at high rates and then employ robotic, servo-controlled motions to carry out the operations. This combination is totally new.”

Transformix is developing a growing family of standard, “plug-and-play” CNC Assembly™ modules, each designed to accommodate a set of common assembly tasks. Nicholson adds, “We call it CNC Assembly™ because it is directly analogous to CNC machining. Just like CNC machining centers, CNC Assembly™ machines are general-purpose tools that can be configured and programmed to run a wide range of products. And just like CNC mills are different from CNC lathes, different CNC Assembly™ machines are intended for different functions.”

Transformix Engineering is a recognized innovator in manufacturing technology, having developed groundbreaking solutions for a broad spectrum of industries, including consumer packaging, medical devices, telecommunication, nuclear, oil & gas, and agriculture. The company operates two plants in Kingston, Ontario and has installed its machines throughout North and South America and Europe. For more information, please visit www.transformix.com.

Contact:

Peng-Sang Cau, President & CEO

peng@transformix.com | North America: 1-800-639-5644 | International: + 1-613-544-5944

ca.linkedin.com/pub/peng-sang-cau/b/280/555

  transformix