05/23/2017

YOUR SOLUTION for Automation and Logistics at the LIGNA 2017

Industry 4.0 determines the future of the markets with networked automation solutions. For this, it is important to profoundly understand the market, to dare to do something new and thus to open up new terrain. The one, who continues this path and challenges it with courage, will lead and shape the future. Therefore HOMAG creates the right system solutions from one source. Visitors were able to experience that at the LIGNA in hall 14.

woodStore 7 - Mobile, networked, user-friendly

Robot insert station for automatic carton filling - VRE 200

Material flow with superhuman reliability

Time saving, transparency, and cost control - storage systems solve logistics

MPH - the perfect assembly aide

VKS - Fully automatic for precisely fitting cardboard boxes

Automation solutions from HOMAG ensure the quality of the products to be manufactured. They work with the utmost precision and take over heavy work. Productivity is clearly increased. So, the woodworking companies remain strong in competition. This can be achievef particularly by interlinking the individual production lines.

Intelligently networked – woodStore 7.

woodStore is the brain of each HOMAG storage system. In the latest version 7 woodStore has particularly gained in the fields of operator convenience and safety, and in process optimization. Now, the new tools offer another optimization potential in the material management in the whole system storage-operating machine and, at the same time, strengthen the user safety.

woodStore links the purchase system to the order processing, manages offcuts, analyses, controls, and optimizes all material movements. Even panels in external storage places can be managed. So, each material is registered in the control with unambiguous data, such as storing position, number, quality, etc., beginning with new delivered material up to panels that are called manual offcuts. In this way, search and handling times are significantly reduced, even for offcuts, since they are stored with unambiguous assignment and are recommended with highest priority for adequate orders. The current offcut stock is displayed on each terminal connected to the horizontal storage system and can easily be operated through simple filter functions.

Noteworthy is also the product analysis integrated into woodStore. Adjusted to the user’s specific production conditions, this tool evaluates the whole storage movements and present on this base how efficiently the storage works. The so called "expert system" generates different strategies on the base of this evaluation and gives tips on how to optimize the efficiency of the storage.

Robot insert station VRE for automatic carton filling.

Fully automatic workpiece insertion into cartons: that works with the robot insert station VRE 200 without pit – because almost everything can be automated.

Availabilities of almost 100% and nearly identical repeatability – the robot is the central element of the insert station VRE 200. The safe robot handling works with a very high repeatability on continuous speed – and that space saving.

Josef Werner, Director Central Sales: “With the robot insert station we created a solution for serial producers that can insert individual parts into a carton in 10 cycles without needing a pit. That is a genuine world innovation for the sector of ready-to-assemble furnitures.”

The insert station works fully automatic and adapts to the speed with which the cardboards pass the insert area of the robot. Where elsewhere employees lay workpieces into passing cardboards at a transport distance in monotonous movements, here, the insert station plays its full strength.

Fed by a feeding system linked to the station, material stacks are forwarded onto a lifting platform and transported to the pick-up position perfect for the robot. There, the robot picks up the respective top workpiece in the stack to insert it into a passing carton. With a capacity of maximum 10 cycles per minute, the robot always hits exactly into the carton. This is made possible by the sensor system in the insertion area. It indicates the exact position of the cardboard on the transport belt. So, it is completely transparent for the robot where it has to move the suctioned workpiece and correspondingly to deposit.

Perfectly positioned between cardboard folding machine and carton closure machine, the VRE offers the possibility, for the first time, to completely automate a packaging line. Another advantage: The insert station can also be subsequently integrated into almost every packaging concept.

Perfect packing – fully automatic.

The cardboard closing machine VKV 710 safely and economically closes completely packed cardboard boxes in a fully automatic way. By means of hot-melt procedure and robust pressing plates the machine closes the packages (of the type FEFCO 0409 and 0410) in two steps and thus reaches an enormous stability and rigidity. The result: A cleanly closed cardboard box, which optimally protects products during transport. The VKV 710 provides an optimal solution in automated packing to the operator. The closing procedure and the identification of the package width in the infeed section of the VKV 710 allow to close packages with different sizes one after the other. Regardless if serial production, small batch sizes or batch size 1 – the package order is irrelevant.

Particular feature: The closing mechanisms quickly change to the respective cardboard size in a fully automatic way. Thus, the entry of data such as package dimensions is no longer required. In serial production, the VKV 710 reaches a capacity of up to 10 packages per minute in first-class packing quality.

Whether batch size 1 or serial production, whether stand-alone operation or integrated in a complex packing line – the cardboard closing machine VKV 710 flexibly adjusts to user’s requirements and demands. The VKV 710 can be individually and flexibly equipped with driven packing belts, packing places, cardboard cutting machines, folding machines or robot stacking and thus extended to a complete packing line. The machine grows along with its challenges!

Material flow with superhuman reliability – TLB 321.

Sorting in batch size 1. That is possible with the collating center TLB 321. Arriving panel streams are decoupled, sorted and provided to the next process in ideal order. The material is exactly positioned already when taken out of the transport belt The new designed carriage whose surface can be flexibly used will be especially helpful in this respect. The carriage design also ensures better space use of the shelves, which can be served by the transport element carriage. The reason is the simultaneous transport and telescoping of workpieces onto the carriage. Using the TLB 321 enables ideal use of sheds, multiple storing of workpieces in a row and side by side, and an optimal utilization of the available space.

However, the carriage is only one component of the new development. There are interesting developments in the topic of maintainability. The switch cabinet is a fixed component of the carriage frame and in the event of maintenance can be driven in an ideal position for the user. Several quick-change modules have also been integrated into the TLB to maintain various components without significant loss of time.

In the end, the use according to size and capacity is only limited by the range of laser measurement. A sorting alley can be extended up to a length of 45 meters module by module due to the unitized scalable modular system. How many of these alleys are positioned next to each other depends on the user’s requirements. Finally, the user has to decide. The TLB 321 buffers, sorts and collates the material flow with almost superhuman reliability over the whole process chain.

Time saving, transparency, and cost control –
storage systems solve logistics.

From craftsman who uses a storage in the size of a double garage, up to industrially producing furniture manufacturer who operates a horizontal storage with maximum dimensions – storage systems solve the logistical requirements at the beginning of the process chain. Panels are stored into and removed from the horizontal storage, collated, or transferred to the connected operating machine quickly, fully automatic and precisely.

Panel saws can easily be integrated via standard interfaces. Furthermore, by using horizontal storage systems, different transport systems can be combined through which additional operating machines will be integrated, or offcuts could be returned into the storage.

In brief: The storage decides and organizes the logistics so that operating machines can run optimally. Idle times are avoided due to a continuous material flow. The storage systems TLF 211 and TLF 411 solve the logistical requirements at the beginning of the process chain. They do not differ in their basic function. In both series, this is to enable the optimum value creation at the very beginning of the production chain. Means: No matter which storage is used, it is always about material flow optimization, transparency in material stock, and to maximize the output of the linked operating machines.

Automated seamless joint –
Ambition 1650 airTec & BOOMERANG® TFU 140.

HOMAG Automation will show you how it is possible to produce furniture parts in automated reliability with seamless joint by using a combination of Ambition 1650 airTec and BOMMERANG® TFU 140.
Just a short finger tip on the Ambition touch panel and the aggregates of the edge banding machine automatically adjust to the required panel and edge parameters. The Ambition 1650 airTec is perfectly completed by the BOOMERANG® TFU 140. Combined with the Ambition series, the return unit is a system solution, which to be proud of. Even the entry version unfolds its effects in smallest space. The workpiece flow will be optimized automatically and the personnel organization more flexible due to economical one-man-operation.

The production process will be more slender and efficient. So, a „yes“ to automation in edge banding lines is no question of the size of the company but prerequisite for more cost-effectiveness. This can be achieved in smallest space and answers the question for whom a return unit is it worth it. For everyone who has got an edge banding line.

Pressing with the MPH, the perfect assembly aide.

The MPH is the perfect assembly aide for pressing of carcass furniture. The press has a wide range of applications, whether in furniture production, object and shop fitting, or in industrial special production. Dense carcasses are produced, which are precisely pressed and perfectly rectangular.

Operation is simple and doesn’t require prior knowledge. You only have to place the carcass into the press and press the start button. This will start the press process. Assemble, connect and start.

Packaging – a central brand ambassador.

High gloss fronts, individual furniture parts, or assembled furniture – goods have to be properly packed in order to arrive at user’s site without damage. Additionally, packaging provides important visual stimuli. It is the first thing a customer will see when his merchandise arrives and more than ever part of the brand message.

Eco-friendly packaging signal sustainability and environmental awareness. With the cardboard cutting machines VKS 250, HOMAG responds to the requirements and offers solutions for an even better packing of goods and simultaneously high saving in time and costs.

The VKS 250 automatically processes endless cardboard to accurately fitting folding cartons. In this process, the cardboard may vary in web width and paper quality as a matter of course. An enormous advantage for users, since the time consuming resetting of endless cardboard is omitted. So, the cycle of packaging does not have to be interrupted unintentionally. Thus, a fitting “tailor-made suit” is manufactured for each product just in time, as individually as it may be.