At Masinara, automation reigns supreme with ABB robots and Modula warehouses working in harmony.
In the sheet metal stamping and assembly production area, where the old metal containers have given way to 7 automatic Modula ML50D warehouses, connected to an ABB robot that moves between them.
The double external bay warehouses, which were previously managed by operators, are now serviced fully automatically by the anthropomorphic robot.
Modula and ABB carried out the project together, mainly coordinating the software-side process by which ABB’s Deck software interacts with the Modula WMS.
The process coordinated by Modula and ABB focuses on depalletising, where the robot identifies and pours products into trays, and palletising, where the robot identifies, weighs and picks products to compose orders following a well-defined pattern.
To launch a picking order, the WMS displays the customer’s order and creates the picking missions, which are then confirmed by the DECK software, which orders them according to the previous palletisation pattern. Once the mission is unlocked, the robot starts up and picks from the Modula tray the products needed to compose that order. The anthropomorphic robot picks from the Modula’s outer tray, which not only knows exactly where, but also uses a gripper equipped with a machine vision system to control the accuracy of the pick.
Masinara is a perfect example of a fully automated project with all its advantages. Firstly, in terms of safety and ergonomics for the operator, who no longer has to handle heavy orders or work in confined and dangerous spaces. At the same time, the move to automation has resulted in efficient order picking times, as the Modula is loaded during night-time hours, when the operators are absent.
