At Mangelberger we have long-term goals. And this is why we continuously address the challenges of the future. With our latest development of a „Smart-Wire-Hub“ we have made an important step towards the automated wiring of switchboards. And naturally – as usual – we did it with a little twist.
Since our childhood years we have always been told to take one step after the other. To make sure we don´t trip. And, this is exactly what we did in our project „Robot to Wire“. This involves the support of wiring switchboards using collaborating robots. The foundation: the intelligent supply of wiring cables.
For this purpose Mangelberger has already developed a space-saving and economical „Smart-Wire-Hub“ in 2016. This modularly extensible component provides single conductors on a ground area of only 2.2 m2 – in 16 barrels with a height of up to 800 mm and 16 bulk cartons with a height of 500 mm.
Compact and clever
A simple but ingeniously sophisticated tube system provides the particular single conductors to a central location to be handed over to the downstream Wire-Changer of the assembling line. This is why the providing of new bulk packaging takes only a few of minutes and is a piece of cake. So far, so easy! But now it really gets going:
Our in-house developed „Smart-Wire-Hub“ is not only compact, but also really clever: by using integrated sensor technology it automatically reads the manufacturing data, like producer, wire-parameters, color, EAN-number, batch number or amount that are applied to the barrels and cartons. These manufacturer information that is accessible since September 2019, gets combined with the current data of the production requirements.
By using the delivered quantity and the „in-time“ charged off single conductors the hub calculates the remaining quantity in the barrel and by doing this it is capable of switching to a different barrel with identical content – without the wiring process being interrupted. This is achieved by directly triggering the wire-changers. The runtime of the automated wiring can be significantly reduced (especially at night).
Smart and independent
All barrels used? The Smart-Wire-Hub will automatically show the demands on the integrated display. Or it orders itself using the ERP connection. A pleasant side effect: The new Mangelberger-Hub reads the batch number of the delivered electrical leads and digitally images these on the manufactured partial lengths. This is called digital consistency in a class of its own.
Naturally we are not claiming to have done everything right immediately. We have learned a lot in the process, e.g. leaving out a Wire-ID towards a Wire-Transfer-ID. Ultimately only this way the same wires can be managed at several spaces, to be supplied to the wiring, depending on the remaining quantities.
Special highlight: Our Smart-Wire-Hub accesses directly our robotics-database – and by doing this it is able to determine the wire requirements for all currently ordered switchboard systems and to coordinate reordering depending on the consumption and capacity.
Complex? Not at all. But a little bit smart.
And therefore a good foundation for our next steps that will follow.
We will keep you in the loop!