RobotClean
As leading international industrial systems supplier, SACMI/IT is at the forefront of technological innovation introducing new solutions with the aim of helping its customers achieve top quality products. The working conditions of personnel operating in the sanitaryware industry is a question gaining more and more importance. In this light, SACMI believes that finding the best solutions to protect operator health and safety in the workplace is the right way to operate in a socially responsible manner. With the legal decree “D.Lgs. n.44/2020”, respirable crystalline silica dust, and all work processes involving exposure to respirable crystalline silica dust generated by a work process, have been included in the list of processes and agents carrying a risk of carcinogenic exposure.
To meet the indications in the new standards regarding health and safety in the workplace, SACMI presents its new RobotClean technology. This solution will allow SACMI’s customers to carry out all those operations which are commonly referred to as sanitaryware white finishing – currently performed manually where the operator works in contact with hazardous substances – in complete safety.
RobotClean, the result of years of R&D carried out by SACMI’s R&D centre in Imola, consists of an anthromorphic robot equipped with newly designed tools, an innovative programming system and numerous accessories dedicated to the piece finishing operations. Specially developed to faithfully reproduce the operations carried out by the operator, these dedicated RobotClean tools are provided with integrated control to compensate the forces on the piece and are available in different models, specially designed for the various work stages (external surfaces, internal surfaces of the WC bowl, rim and under-rim, etc.) and for different sanitaryware models. Thanks to these tools, it is possible to control the final quality of piece finishing with absolute precision. The tools are equipped with special abrasive elements dedicated to finishing operations as well as with blowing and suction elements to ensure that the area where the tools work is completely clean. Tool change-over from one work stage to the next, as also with change-over of the abrasive elements, is entirely handled by the robot.
The combination of the mechanical compensation of forces on the pieces and the special finishing tools has been carefully designed to meet the production requirements of the sanitaryware industry, with the possibility to handle elements from very different casting technologies; from high-pressure casting to traditional casting with plaster moulds. In all cases, RobotClean guarantees a finishing process which meets the high quality standards of SACMI’s customers. Furthermore, during the design stage, care was taken to keep the modularity concept of the technology at the forefront. In this way, SACMI is able to offer its customers a complete range of automatic finishing solutions, each of which is dedicated to specific production requirements: from the fully optional finishing cell which can carry out the complete range of operations required for the production mix (making use of the cell’s flexibility) up to solutions with several finishing robots placed one after the other so as to maximize production capacity and eliminate tool change-over operations.
With the aim of supplying a rapid and intuitive technology, RobotClean is equipped with dedicated programming software which allow it to simulate in detail the robot movements and operations. All programming and simulation activities can be carried out directly from the office (offline programming mode) and therefore without the need for long production stops for the creation of new robot missions.
RobotClean has been designed for integration with the other stages of the production process and with other SACMI technologies already in operation at SACMI´s customers` plants, from casting cells to automatic robotized glazing lines, with the aim of providing complete automation of sanitaryware production plants.
The RobotClean cell is also provided with a special device used to rotate and turn over the sanitaryware piece being worked on. In this way, SACMI offers the possibility to carry out white finishing operations on the entire surface of the piece, thus reducing the manual work of the operator exclusively to the final testing stage.
In the same view of ensuring a clean and safe working environment, the innovative filtering booth developed for RobotClean is of particular importance. This booth is specially designed to guarantee the highest quality filtering system for the work process dust particles which build up inside the robot’s work area so that they cannot in any way leak out into the workplace where operators are present.
In addition to the fundamental aspects of safeguarding operator and workplace health and safety, RobotClean is an excellent solution to standardize the quality of a process which, as previously mentioned, has always been carried out manually by operators up to now. Considering that white finishing is one of the work stages which decisively determines the final look of the product installed in our houses, RobotClean makes it possible to achieve uniform quality of every single piece, without the variations which are inevitable with any manual process, in order to guarantee full customer satisfaction.