Erowa/Mazak automation increasingly popular

Since it was first shown at its recent celebration of 20 Years of Manufacturing in Worcester, it has received orders for five systems connected to Mazak Variaxis 500-5X II machining centres and a further one for a Mazak Horizontal Center Nexus 5000-II horizontal machining centre. “Most enquiries are from customers who are looking to run their machines lights out overnight, but need a flexible system that will easily handle a range of component sizes,” says Steve Richardson, european development engineer at Yamazaki Mazak. “Typically competitor systems only allow a single pallet size and cannot be extended to multiple machine or a mix of machines. With the Mazak/Erowa combination, however, it is perfectly feasible to interface different machines types within the same system, as the Erowa interface is identical for all Mazak machines.” To maintain a small footprint for the system, Erowa uses the concept of matching the pallet size to the part. This reduces the amount of wasted space in the pallet stocker and allows more pallets to be stored in a given area. The robot can automatically change the gripper to suit the specific pallet size. Additional flexibility and capacity is added by using multiple levels of pallet storage, creating a capacity of up to 270 pallets spread across nine levels with a footprint of only 1m² in the case of Erowa's Robot Multi. Another advantage of the Erowa systems is that all pallets are stored horizontally making it much easier to change work pieces, which is achieved via the loading station without interfering with machine operation. Where pallets have to be loaded into the machine vertically, in a horizontal machining centre for example, the pallet is rotated to the vertical position as part of the robot’s movement. “By the level of interest shown and the number of enquiries we have received we can already see that this partnership between Mazak and Erowa will continue to grow,” Mr Richardson confirmed. “This will allow more of our customers to benefit from higher levels of automation even when they have limited space.”