Medical Design Briefs - May 2024 - 8

Orthopedic Manufacturing
Right: Advanced robotic machine tending
with in-line inspection deployed at SpiTrex
Orthopedics on FOBA laser marking and
engraving machines. (Credit: Flexxbotics)
Left: The system provides robot-driven manufacturing with
autonomous process control for closed loop-quality and
unattended continuous operation. (Credit: Flexxbotics)
neer's time was necessary to change over and set up each new job,
and the machines required an operator to run. This stage of the
process was determined to have the highest return on investment
(ROI) and business-critical impact for robotic automation because
all parts produced funneled through the unique device
identifier (UDI) laser marking step for serialized traceability and
FDA compliance.
Solution
Early on, SpiTrex identified the need for robot+machine
communication and coordination due to the multistep nature
of the laser marking operation and their previous experience
with production robotic automation projects. Flexxbotics' solution
was chosen based on the open connectivity that enables
interoperability and powerful functionality for robot and machine
orchestration to run unattended.
" Flexxbotics is the only robot machine tending software solution
we found capable of delivering the precision, cycle-time
and closed-loop compliance required, " notes Brett Gopal,
SpiTrex orthopedics senior vice president of operations.
The breakthrough FlexxCORE technology enables robots to
securely connect and communicate with the FOBA laser marking
and engraving equipment, including the integrated camera
systems for robotic control of part processing with in-line inspection
enabling autonomous process control. The solution coordinates
each robot's actions with three-stage marking process
which includes part inspection prior to marking, automatic mark
alignment, and subsequent validation of the marking along with
vision-assisted workflows for accurate touch-up if necessary.
" It was clear the benefit of Flexxbotics' solution horizontally
integrating from one FOBA machine to another. What made
their solution extremely unique was their ability to vertically
integrate to our premachining process, post process and IT systems, "
says Gopal.
8
After the laser marking processing, SpiTrex vertically integrated
Flexxbotics to its premachining and post-processing
workflows, streamlining operations and delivering closedloop
quality control. It directs the robots to use a COGNEX
vision system to determine the pass/fail status of each part
and autonomously sort parts based on the results. In addition,
it then sends alerts with the camera images to quality engineers
and the quality system repository when nonconformance
issues are detected from steps that occurred in previous
operations to close the loop in real time resulting in less
scrap and rework for higher yields.
" We are impressed with Flexxbotics' autonomous process control
using robots, and the ability to close-the-loop by alerting upstream
and downstream work cells of quality problems based on
automated inspection results which is quite unique, " Gopal says.
Flexxbotics' expert consultants led the initiative to design,
deploy, and optimize the collaborative robots in the work cells.
Working together with SpiTrex personnel, the Flexxbotics
team identified the business outcomes, technical requirements,
and the part presentation, facility, and safety considerations
necessary for success.
Project rollout plans were time-phased to incrementally automate
work cells in order to minimize disruption and maximize
ongoing output. As each work cell was robot enabled, an optimization
period was undertaken to ensure that yield targets and
utilization levels were achieved.
The solution directly connects the robots to the FOBA laser
marking systems as well as other machinery and systems in the
factories, enabling coordinated communication and orchestration
for the processing of each part, and the ability to change
jobs in real time, reducing changeover setup time to less than
10 minutes from over an hour previously.
" The autonomous changeover process coupled with the closed
feedback loop functionality enables us to produce extremely high
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Medical Design Briefs - May 2024

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