Intelligent automation of an expanded polypropylene production cell

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Polycon is a major automotive plant located in Guelph, Ontario. It is part of Magna Exterior division and specializes in manufacturing polymer based body parts like fascia. It has around 1400 employees. One of Polycon's manufacturing processes, expanded polypropylene production (EPP), starts with mixing different blends of resin to manufacture the raw moulded parts using injection moulding presses. The parts come out of the machine and fall randomly onto a conveyor where they are moved to a press operator who must sort, inspect, label and finally place the parts on a rail to be cured prior to packaging. Once the parts are cured/cooled for a specified period of time, they are packed into customer boxes or racks. There are two main problems in this process. First, operator precision in sorting and inspecting parts must be close to 100%. This is because mislabeled parts can lead to stoppage of the production line at the customer assembly plant resulting in very significant cost to Polycon. Second the continuous grabbing of parts and bending to place them into a rack or box can lead to repetitive strain injuries. While improved training has lead to reduced impact of both challenges, the best solution is to automate the process. The objective of this proposal is to automate the EPP parts sorting, inspecting, labeling, and packaging process. The proposed automation system will use advanced machine vision and grasp planning techniques integrated with suitable robot arms to perform these tasks without significant impact on the shop floor layout or production process. We expect this automation to guarantee the process repeatability and reduce the labour content of the EPP work cell which can lead to significant impact on Polycon's operational expenses and overall competitiveness.