Automated battery cell production

JenaBatteries wanted to enter the market rapidly, therefore product development and production planning had to go hand in hand. JenaBatteries needed specific expertise in the field of manufacturing and therefore sought advice from ECOSPHERE Intralogistics GmbH, a company that supports manufacturers in production planning, intralogistics, and automation.

JenaBatteries wanted to set up automated production for one of the essential components of the batteries – the cell stack. This stack consists of different materials stacked on top of each other; in total, over 300 individual parts for each cell need to be stacked and then compressed.

How can production be optimized?

At the beginning of the project, different approaches for production and assembly were designed. In addition to technical feasibility and cost, many other questions also needed to be answered: How much floor space is required? How can the machines be optimally arranged? What is the best material flow? Is the reach of the robots sufficient? How can the cycle time be reduced to achieve the required number of stack units? How can production be made more sustainable? And how can production be scaled up at a later stage to meet growing demand?

Plant layout with Visual Components

All these questions can only be answered with a digital factory model. ECOSPHERE Intralogistics has chosen the factory simulation software from Visual Components. With Visual Components, the company can create virtual models of production cells and complete factories. All questions such as space requirements, machine arrangement, material flow, intermediate storage, cycle times, quantities, etc. can be answered on the computer.

Alexander Schiffer, Managing Director of ECOSPHERE Intralogistics, talks about his experience: “There is hardly a meeting in which I don’t have Visual Components open on my laptop. Whether I’m sketching out an initial idea with new customers or simulating and optimizing an existing system – Visual Components helps me to create a common understanding.”

An extensive library of factory components is included

Visual Components is one of the world’s leading solutions for 3D factory planning and simulation. The software comes with a library of factory components; this allows production facilities to be easily designed, planned, and simulated. Factory planners can create “digital twins” – for small production cells as well as for complete factories; such a digital twin enables production planning, optimization, and even virtual commissioning.

The headquarters of Visual Components are in Finland, but the software is used worldwide in many industries, from mechanical engineering and the automotive industry to the packaging industry and logistics. Purchase or subscription is affordable even for smaller companies since different versions of the software are available.

Robot simulation and programming

The first step in the battery cell production is a manual pre-assembly. Here an employee places some components on a workpiece carrier trolley and assembles the first parts. The trolley is then moved to an automated assembly station, initially by hand, in the future by a mobile robot. In this station, several robots assemble more than 300 components of the battery stack. After that, the stack moves on to a pressing device and then to quality control and final assembly.

Plant model in Visual Components: After the manual pre-assembly station, the various stations (robot, final assembly, quality control, etc.) are arranged along the conveyor.

Optimization of the process with realistic goods carrier trolleys.

The robot library supplied by Visual Components contains all important attributes, e.g., movement parameters of robots from well-known manufacturers such as KUKA, Universal Robots, and Stäubli. CAD data of the components to be assembled can be imported directly into the Visual Components 3D factory model. This allows analyses like robot reach and collision avoidance to be done very easily in the virtual model.

Exact time and motion simulations can also be done, which allows to reduce non-productive times, minimize cycle times and optimize the entire system. Programming of the robots is done directly in Visual Components; this means the production does not have to shut down for robot programming should changes be made to either products or processes.

The factory model allows a flexible reaction to changes

It was important for Alexander Schiffer from ECOSPHERE Intralogistics that the Visual Components factory model could be easily adapted to the rapidly changing requirements: “This project was not a typical mechanical engineering project with exactly defined specifications and requirements. It was rather a dynamic environment where the underlying conditions changed almost every week. But the flexibility of Visual Components’ factory model enabled a very agile and flexible collaboration between JenaBatteries and ECOSPHERE.”

As the battery cell was still under development at that time, a production system had to be planned that could be flexibly adapted to changing components and processes: “We had to keep all core components of the machine as modular and flexible as possible. We had an optimal picture of the finished plant in mind and also started component development early on, such as the workpiece carrier trolleys. They are initially moved by hand but are already prepared for later automation.”

Saving a lot of money with factory simulation

Visual Components’ factory model was also used to create very informative images for management. Philipp Hammans, CEO of JenaBatteries GmbH, reports: “The visualizations by Visual Components helped us enormously in our strategic planning, especially because I could quickly see the current status of the automation project. Especially in our planning phase, such tools make it much easier to make informed decisions.”

Alexander Schiffer: “In addition, thanks to the detailed calculation and simulation with Visual Components, JenaBatteries was able to precisely quantify its future investment. For example, we were able to determine exactly the space required for the production facility. This enabled JenaBatteries to look for a suitable property at an early stage; given the current rising prices, this can save a lot of money.”

Generous support for start-up companies

ECOSPHERE® Intralogistics GmbH has benefited from a new offer from Visual Components that is specifically available for start-up companies in the DACH region. Young companies can purchase up to three full licenses of Visual Components at very attractive conditions. Low investment costs during the start-up phase of young companies facilitate the purchase. At the end of the 3-year program, the licenses can be converted to commercial permanent licenses. This way, Visual Components’ start-up offer allows young, small companies to optimize manufacturing processes using professional software tools.

Alexander Schiffer is grateful for this opportunity: “Also our customers benefit from this offer. In addition to using the tool for factory layout and sales, we also want to offer factory simulation as a service in the future. So, anyone looking for a partner to carry out such simulations is welcome to contact us.”

The post How ECOSPHERE helped JenaBatteries automate redox flow battery production with Visual Components appeared first on Visual Components.

Imagine that as a tire supplier, you have to deliver 12,000 tires per day to a car manufacturer, just in time and just in sequence – in the exact order in which the cars are assembled on the assembly line and how their customers have ordered – and with numerous different tire types. This is a technical and operational challenge that requires a well-organized interim storage facility and sophisticated logistics in order to manage.

In this case study, we’ll show you how Güdel, one of the world’s leading providers of automation, linear, and drive technology; used Visual Components to plan and design an automated solution for the sorting, storage and palletizing of tires from production to shipping.

A technology-defined solution

The solution that Güdel designed for this customer project was impressive, in terms of both its technology and scale. It included a massive ASRS gantry robot system that could sort, store, and organize a random infeed of tires and retrieve completed sets of tires for delivery. After production, tires arrive in a random order via the infeed conveyor technology to a barcode scanner that reads the barcode of the tire and sends it to the material flow computer. This decides which buffer the tire should go to. The gantry bridge responsible for the buffer then removes the tire and a gripper that moves across the storage area on linear axes and gantries places it on an existing stack of the same type or forms a new stack. For reasons of stability, the stack height is limited to a maximum of 1.6 meters. Within the buffer, which can accommodate up to 8,000 tires, a tire type is temporarily stored until there are enough tires to fill a complete range for transport. As soon as a complete set of tires is completed, the stack is gripped by a gripper and transported to a palletizing unit. In order to achieve the required high throughput of 12,000 tires per day, several grippers are used on several portal bridges. These grippers move at speeds of up to 3.5 meters / second in the Y-axis and accelerations of up to 5 meters / sec2 in the Z-axis.

Although many standard components from Güdel are used in such systems, it is always a customer-specific task, because the size of the hall, the dimensions and weights of the goods to be palletized and the requirements for throughput are different each time. The complexity and the high demands on reliability and throughput make it necessary to use a powerful solution for factory planning and simulation. With Visual Components 3D factory simulation software, Güdel has found an ideal system with which they can design, simulate, and validate their production solutions.

Turning a 2D drawing into a 3D simulation model with Visual Components

The starting point when planning such a system is usually a 2D drawing that has been coordinated with the customer. The 2D drawing is imported into Visual Components to provide a reference point for the layout, and a 3D layout of the system is designed and configured using components from the component library. In designing this system, Güdel utilized the large library of components available in the Visual Components eCatalog; as well as the numerous components they created for their own user-defined library (Güdel Smart Components such as linear axes, portals and robots). Since the travel paths of the bridges are very dynamic in such projects, the simulation logic is mapped with Python. Güdel has developed its own Python library for this purpose, which is tailored to the “Sorting and Palletizing” division. Thanks to all of these libraries, the planning and design times for such systems can be significantly reduced.

Jonathan Camenzind from the “Software Technologies” department at Güdel AG, together with his colleagues, takes care of the software for complete systems, including the programming of material flow computers and warehouse management systems. For this project, the part of the system that fell within the area of responsibility of Güdel was completely mapped with Visual Components. In this way, the system could be designed virtually according to the specification, statistics could be collected and potential performance problems in the system could be discovered and eliminated at an early stage.

“I devote a large part of my working time to creating 3D simulations with Visual Components,” says Camenzind. “With the help of Visual Components, we created a detailed simulation for this project. This enabled us to precisely analyze cycle times, portal utilization and buffer utilization in various scenarios.”

With the help of Visual Components, we created a detailed simulation for this project. This enabled us to precisely analyze cycle times, portal utilization and buffer utilization in various scenarios.

Jonathan Camenzind, Software Technologies Department, Güdel AG

Verifying the system meets the customer’s requirements

How can Güdel ensure that the system provides the service requested by the customer? This is exactly where Camenzind sees one of the main advantages of the factory simulation with Visual Components: “Thanks to the evaluation of cycle times and utilization of the portal bridges, we were able to ensure that the system meets the customer’s requirements in terms of throughput. The simulation also showed that the number of buffer spaces is sufficient.”

Another important benefit Güdel has realized with using Visual Components is time savings. “Thanks to the Visual Components libraries and the additions by Güdel, the development times for such projects are only a fraction of the time previously required,” says Mr. Camenzind. “Using the smart components in the Visual Components software, for example, I can easily connect the bearings, bridges, infeeds and outfeeds visually. I only spent around 100 hours on the first version of the complete system, including the programming of material flow computers. For further scenarios, around 80 hours were added in the following weeks.”

Thanks to the Visual Components libraries and the additions by Güdel, the development times for such projects are only a fraction of the time previously required. Using the smart components in the Visual Components software, for example, I can easily connect the bearings, bridges, infeeds and outfeeds visually.

Jonathan Camenzind, Software Technologies Department, Güdel AG

Using simulation to help win new orders

The customer was also impressed by the solution. “The simulation with Visual Components was viewed very positively by our customer,” said Camenzind. “It increases the customer’s confidence in the system builder when he can see a sophisticated simulation of the planned system. And that certainly also helps to win orders and lay the foundation for further success in the future.”

If you would like to see a similar Güdel system in operation, this video shows a system for storing and sorting complete wheels:

About the Güdel Group

The Güdel Group is one of the world’s leading providers of automation, linear, and drive technology, with its headquarters in Langenthal, Switzerland. The Güdel Group has been family-owned since it was founded in 1954 and employs around 1,200 people worldwide at over 30 locations. Their product range extends from linear guides, racks, pinions and gears to linear axes and portal robots. In addition to a wide range of automation components, Güdel also offers complete systems, such as for the production of components for prefabricated houses, food palletizing, and for the storage, sorting and picking of products of all kinds.

The post How Güdel optimized tire logistics with automated sorting and palletizing using Visual Components appeared first on Visual Components.