How a Mechatronics Solutions Provider Meets the Demand for Flexible Manufacturing

Skye Automation is a mechatronics-based solutions provider of precision industrial automation. Based in Stirling, Ontario, Canada, the integrator has an expansive catalog of services ranging from engineering design, fabrication, manufacturing and automation to machine vision and robotics expertise.

According to Skye Automation’s president, Skye Gorter, manufacturing is seeing a trend “whereby consumers are demanding more options and more flexibility in the way they purchase, and so it’s pushing back on manufacturing to really have more options in the product offerings and how they go about manufacturing those goods.”

His company responds to the demand for more options by invoking a flexible manufacturing approach on projects, he told Machine Design.

Flexible manufacturing is a production approach that enables a measure of economy, especially for small-batch manufacturing, as it enables the production of variable products in small and repeatable batches. Manufacturers leverage automation to react to changes, manage production volumes, reduce the need for human labor, lower cost and reduce waste.

Small companies like Skye Automation (the company employs less than 20 employees) consider flexible manufacturing to be strategically relevant for enhancing competitiveness and for winning customer orders.

The following edited transcript of Skye Gorter’s interview with Machine Design outlines his perspective on the value that flexible manufacturing brings to the value chain.

Machine Design: Tell us a bit about what the market is asking or demanding of you.

Skye Gorter: Flexibility in the manufacturing process means some critical things for the manufacturing side. With the rising costs of floor space, it means smaller manufacturing spaces or machines that can do multiple different components. It also means fast changeovers, and it means machines that are capable of reliably producing a multitude of components. So really, it’s lowered manufacturing costs while still providing the range of product selection that customers are looking for.

MD: Can you share an example of how you are applying that?

SG: Yes. We have a project that we’re working on now. I’ll share an image of that [editor’s note: see below]. From the image, perhaps it’s difficult to understand exactly what’s happening. The purpose of this machine is to take user inputs and automatically configure it.

Skye Automation completed an automatically configured integration that includes an industrial robot. This setup has the potential to run 1,000 different configurations of the specified parts.

This machine has the potential to run, say, 1,000 different configurations of these parts, which, from an integration standpoint, it would be incredibly laborious to program all those different components. Instead, we take a different approach to make the machine user-friendly in a way that any operator can put in variable inputs, they can save a recipe, and the machine will understand what it needs to do.

In this case, it’s a family of products with seven different variables, which could be things like diameter, length, position of the component, what type of component...All these variables go into the front end, which the operator will understand, and it can be stored as a recipe.

Using vision-guided robotics and flexible manufacturing techniques, the robotic systems will understand what needs to be done, how to handle the parts and how to process them, so that we are getting a finished part that meets the quality standards. In this case, tolerances such as ± a millimeter or ± one degree of the accuracy of the finished assemblies. We’re not diminishing the reliability or the accuracy of the system. We’re just utilizing the machine for a wide variety of components.

For this specific manufacturer, it means that we’re replacing a number of outdated machines that may run one or two or three different components with this one machine that will run those, plus everything else available. It means better utilization of their floor space, better utilization of the machine so they don’t have machines sitting idle. And it means a future-proofed machine, because they can add new components into it without any integration or programming. It is simply putting in the parameters.

We also have safety protocols on the machine so that it understands during a changeover that it has the correct hardware configured for the parts selected. We make it as user-friendly as possible while eliminating the risk of manufacturing the wrong components.

MD: Who are your typical clients for this type of application?

SG: We see a large demand in areas such as automotive, but that's really just because that’s where we are in southern Ontario. This technology is applied to so many different industries—consumer goods, for example, medical or food. As consumers see the grocery stores change shelves with so many new products, new packaging, we see the demand for flexibility growing in virtually every industry.

Each application needs to be evaluated for its own merits. Flexibility is not a standard solution, so it has to be developed specific to the client’s requirements. That means that we have to be careful on how we apply this type of technology. It has to make sense for the process.

But more and more with the advancement of technology, the advancement in robotic programming and the capabilities in machine vision, those technologies can be combined and integrated to make a seamless, flexible system that really delivers an excellent ROI when it comes to replacing old equipment or maximizing floor space or utilizing the machinery to its maximum capabilities. The opportunities are specific, but they’re very broad-based depending on the application, specifically.