White Paper: The Adaptive Machine

The Adaptive Machine: Design Strategies & Attributes

Dedicated machine designs are giving way to base machine modules that are configured to production requirements, reconfigured as needed and support ‘batch of one’ operations.

The result is a new category of machinery, the adaptive machine.

This paper discusses attributes of adaptive machines and the enabling technologies behind the movement.

Batch Size One: The Ultimate Goal

‘Batch size one’ has become a practical reality, and in some applications may be the only realistic approach. For example, in B&R’s own manufacture of industrial PCs, there are 250 billion possible configurations – so make-to-stock is not an option. Cost effective, efficient batch of one manufacturing is the only alternative in B&R’s smart factory, and has been operational since 2009.

Today, automation technologies are being commercialized that put smart factory functionalities in the realm of real-world production and packaging applications. This new generation of machinery is required to cost effectively meet the expectations of consumers increasingly used to getting precisely what they want, quickly, online.

While additive manufacturing is a promising approach in many applications, it is not applicable to the majority of food, beverage, pharmaceutical and household goods production processes. Therefore, it will not be a subject of this paper.

While production lots, literally of one product, also don’t fit every product category, the same technologies apply to automation of rainbow packing, mass customization, short production runs with frequent changeovers and producing limited time offers. Batch size one is the ultimate invocation of these marketplace trends.

Manufacturer as Sales Channel

With a practical batch of one manufacturing and packaging capability, manufacturers can go direct to consumer, without the added steps and cost of going through an e-commerce reseller. This has the potential for manufacturers to reverse the chronic power shift from manufacturer to sales channel.

Batch size one also serves to reduce raw materials and finished goods inventory costs, the overhead cost of regional distribution centers, the cost of servicing wholesale and retail sales channels, and the discounting/disposal of unsold inventory.

^{An adaptive machine will handle radical and unforeseen requirements through modularity.}

An adaptive machine is one that has the capacity to change over on the fly, and moreover, to reconfigure with different production modules on the same base machine platform. It will readily be adaptable to constant size and format changes. But it will also be adaptable to radical and unforeseen requirements through corresponding equipment changes, such as replacing a carton erector module with a pouch forming module.

Adaptive machinery will compare favorably in all aspects of productivity measurement – OEE, ROI, TCO – as lot sizes shrink and throughput (leadtime and volume) requirements remain critical.

Early Adopters: Rotary Labeling Machines

Rotary labelers are examples of modular machine designs available today that can adapt to paper, film, cold glue, hot melt, self-adhesive, wraparound, front/back and neck labels among others. The correct modules, known as aggregates, are wheeled in and clamped into place. These examples come from Italy.

By individually controlling each bottle plate with a servo motor, each plate becomes an independently controlled zone – essential to the adaptive machine concept. Rotary labelers can therefore gain the flexibility to run different sizes and shapes of bottles – round, square, oval, flask -- that previously required different machines or impractical belt or cam changes.

 
This example is from the U.S. and also features pharmaceutical serialization, another aspect of batch size one in which each container is tracked and traced individually.

The Lure of the Racetrack

Linear transport technologies like ATS Automation™’s SuperTrak™ modular conveyor system are not a new concept. According to the company, the original SuperTrak system itself was introduced in 2002. There are other racetrack configurations on the market as well.

What differentiates the current third generation and future generations of these track systems are ongoing advances in throughput, precision, flexibility, footprint, configuration, integration with complementary technologies such as robotics, maintainability and cost.

^{Linear transports like this SuperTrak™ system are the core of the adaptive machine.}

The core of the adaptive machine, a track system is really much more than a modular conveyor – this new generation of industrial transport technology doesn’t just move products to work stations, it performs work while products are in transit.

Redefining Flexibility

^{Independently controlled shuttles deliver the adaptive machine’s unsurpassed flexibility.}

New generation track systems are variable pitch, meaning that each shuttle is independently controlled, with movements that can be synchronized to prevent bottlenecks and the need for accumulation buffers.

For example, a shuttle with a payload that requires 4 seconds to process can be synchronized to a process that performs a 2-second process on two shuttles, or a 1-second process on four shuttles, and so on. Production planning for variable pitch functionality optimizes production efficiency.

 
In conventional packaging lines this may be accomplished by conveyors fitted with lugs, pucks or even vacuum belts. In assembly and machining lines, parts and products may be fixtured on jigs, ‘tombstones’ or pallets.

Both approaches tend to be rigidly sequential.

In the adaptive machine, fixturing still may be used to maintain positive control over the product, but in a much more flexible environment. Variable pitch, multidirectional travel, and synchronized movements of the shuttle, robot arms, actuators, printheads and other devices mean that the process adapts to the product, not the other way around.

Example: Turning Robots into Filling Lines

This company, based in Asia, has taken an off-theshelf approach that represents another evolutionary step toward the adaptive machine. They’ve implemented filling heads as end-of-arm tooling on robot arms, holding containers in pucks to maintain control, and recreated the inline motion profile of a walking-beam.

Their initial design strategy for using robots?

They had never designed a packaging machine, so they opted for commercially available robot arms and synchronized them to the conveyor system, effectively achieving the modular and reconfigurable aspects of the adaptive machine.

 
Example: ≤4 Second Changeover

Machinery from a Spanish company erects, fills and closes up to four different sized cases on demand, at rates of 20 cases per minute, capable of changing case sizes in 4 seconds or less, programmable with 99 recipe-driven case formats and corresponding lid formats.

They do look like conventional machines with the addition of automated size change equipment, and they are purposebuilt. But imagine a racetrack consecutively feeding different sized products going into different sized cases at very respectable production rates.

It’s mass customization without a throughput penalty. And it is well suited to e-commerce fulfillment because shippers like FedEx and UPS are now charging by package size in addition to weight.

 
Math over Physics

^{Anti-sloshing algorithms seem to defy the laws of physics.}

Automation technology providers continue to develop algorithms to compensate for physical, mechanical and electrical limitations. Anti-sloshing, combined with the new track technology, allows faster movement of open containers of liquids without spilling. This is another motion control software functionality that provides precisely controlled, gentle acceleration and deceleration despite fast movement.

^{The off-the-shelf modularity of adaptive machine subsystems makes simulation tools practical.}

How Would you Spend 1 μsec?

A perfect example of Moore’s Law, the intelligent ‘fast reaction’ I/O slice can respond in as little as one microsecond. At first that may appear to be overkill. But at the high cycle rates, synchronization and small footprints associated with track-based production systems, this rapid response represents yet another enabling technology.