Bison Gear ‘transforms’ blanking operation with robotic automation

Bison Gear & Engineering says its implementation of robotic automation has “transformed the company’s gear blanking operation”.

Bison Gear, a specialist in power transmission industry and a high-mix, low-volume manufacturer, highlights production gains with robotic automation.

Bison incrementally introduces automation solutions and targets specific steps in the production process where automation can have the greatest impact.

This includes both fully automating certain processes and using systems to assist human operators where possible and practical.

An example of Bison’s full automation includes its Fanuc robot, which turns slugs of steel into finished gear blanks without any human interaction. This process previously required two human operators, but it now can happen in a fully automated fashion.

The Fanuc robot transforms raw materials into inspected finished parts. Bison also uses a Renishaw comparator, which automates the inspection process by continually monitoring system accuracy and performance, automatically adjusting parameters where needed.

This spring marks five years since Bison’s robot was brought online. In that time more than 500,000 gears have been finished in this automated gear blanking cell saving thousands of man hours.