Rolf Schmidt Industri Plast talks about their new Doosan M0609 cobot

News

April 2023

Have a look inside Rolf Schmidt Industri Plast in Kolding where they have extensive experience with implementing robots in their production.

At Rolf Schmidt, collaborative robots can now be found in production.

Rolf Schmidt Industri Plast was founded back in 1978 but despite more than 45 years in the business it is a state-of-the-art company based in Kolding, Denmark. The company processes thermoplastics and provides technical advice. Only customized parts are produced on a subcontractor basis . This requires close cooperation with customers, where high professional expertise, short delivery times and high delivery reliability are the cornerstones of Rolf Schmidt.

Customers are mainly in the food and pharmaceutical industries. The machinesin the factory hall run in 2 shifts in order to utilize the machineryoptimally.

robotautomation

More than 10 years ago Rolf Schmidt started looking at how production could be optimized using robotics. However, they were cautious about making a big investment in this still uncharted territory. Therefore, they invested in a small, collaborative robot.

The robot was installed to move raw parts into a CNC machine and take the machined part out again. The idea was the robot would service the CNC machine on series in the order of 100-200 pcs. However, it was quickly discovered that it was so easy to adjust production that even small series of 10-20 pcs. could be worthwhile to automate with the robot. With even more ambition in the field of robotics, the company has since steadily expanded with several small and medium-sized collaborative robots and so far 3 industrial robot cells.

Innovation and development

Rolf Schmidt has managed to remain a very solid company for many years despite fluctuations in both the industry and the global economy. Part of the secret lies in the uncompromising pursuit of new solutions and technologies. Therefore, Rolf Schmidt is constantly searching the market to ensure the right solutions in the production. This led to a visit at United Components in Middelfart, where the collaborative robots from Doosan Robotics, known as generation 2.0 within cobots, were presented and demonstrated. The robots are characterized by having a torque sensor in all joints, providing the highest sensitivity and safety that can be achieved with a collaborative robot.

The choice then fell on an M0609 Doosan robot with a load capacity of 6kg and a reach of 900 mm. with 2 GEP5006 electric grippers from Zimmer Group mounted on an angle flange. The robot is currently servicing a DMG machine and can, with the help of the 2 grippers, remove the finished part workpiece from the vice in the machine and then place a blank in the vice without having to get in and out of the machine between shifts.

You can see the robot working in the video clip and hear about Rolf Schmidt's experiences with replacing another cobot brand with Doosan Robotics (the video is in danish):