Greenerd designs, engineers new two-press production cell for lights-out operations

Greenerd Press & Machine Co., Nashua, N.H., has designed, engineered, built, and turnkey-installed an automated two-press, two-robot production cell, enabling unattended production of large aluminum pressure vessels.

Using sensors to locate pallets of blanks that have been placed in a pallet staging area, the first FANUC robot picks a blank, detects and rejects any double blanks, and transfers the blank to a fully integrated and automated blank lube station. That robot then picks a previously lubricated blank and loads it into a Greenerd deep-draw press with a 76-in. stroke.

A second FANUC robot then catches and transfers the formed parts to a second Greenerd press for a punching operation. The two-press production cell uses a centralized control station that sets the operating parameters of both presses and controls the action sequences of both FANUC robots. All equipment in the cell is automatically updated with new process parameters when changing between products.