Handling Hazardous Part Variety: Metalcasting as a Case Point

Robot grippers are employed to handle parts in automated assembly operations. In conventional foundry assembly, such grippers are dedicated to large volume production of standard parts. However, due to varying customer preferences in the recent years of increased global competition, the foundry industry needs to cope with rapid market changes by increasingly relying on flexible automated assembly lines which are capable of handling a wide variety of parts in small to medium volume and variety. These flexible automated lines require flexible grippers to handle parts which are otherwise not safe to be handled by human operators. This paper discusses various handling methods for hazardous foundry parts. The paper presents an extensive literature review for handling such cast parts and sand cores and their respective shortcomings dependent on the delivery methods. Four versions of grippers developed and implemented for handling cast part variety at the case company have been presented.