26 satisfied customers and over 89 deliveries

AGCO Power Oy is a Finnish company specialising in the manufacture of diesel engines, serving in particular manufacturers of agricultural machinery such as tractors and threshers. The company’s headquarters and factory are located in Linnavuor, Nokia, and it is part of the international AGCO Corporation group.

We implemented a robotic cell for AGCO Power Oy’s Linnavuori factory, which automates the handling of engine clamps and adapter shafts needed for engine testing. The system transfers the parts picked from the racks of the motor pallet to the warehouse and brings new required parts in place according to the instructions of the customer’s production control system. The cell utilises a Universal Robots UR20 cobot on Mekanio’s MekaTrack linear axis, which uses a Schunk PGN-plus-P finger gripper for the gripping tool. Pieces are identified and located using a Cognex machine vision camera. The motorised pallets are fed through the robotic cell by a chain conveyor, the control of which is linked to the robotic cell automation. The cell is equipped with safety systems such as light curtains and magnetic locks on the cell doors to ensure the safety of the workers and the process.

During the project, we were responsible for the design and implementation of the robotic cell, from defining the functionality and programming to deployment and documentation. The safety of the cell was designed together with AGCO Power Oy experts in accordance with the machine safety standards. The machine vision system was implemented by AP-Vision Oy.

The cell allows the customer’s workers to focus on more meaningful tasks by automating repetitive heavy lifting tasks. This improves the efficiency, safety and ergonomics of the production process.

Järvenpää-based OK-konehuolto Oy maintains and repairs earth-moving machinery and manufactures and installs superstructures such as stone pallets and piece goods cranes for trucks. OK-konehuolto’s wish was to have an easily modifiable parametric 3D model of the stone slabs it manufactures, designed with ease of fabrication and the possibilities of modern manufacturing methods in mind. The pallets are often customised to the car and the customer, so the ability to quickly modify the basic pallet structure would speed up the design process significantly.

We created a brand new 3D lava model for the client, all parts of which are automatically modified to the new dimensions by entering the required dimensions into the software. The production images can now also be created much faster than before. We also updated the design and details of the pallets to allow for easier and more straightforward manufacturing. The requirements of robotic welding were also taken into account in the design of the pallet model.

“With the new bed models, the production of pallets has become much more efficient” – Verneri Ovaska Managing Director of OK-machine maintenance.

Before starting Mekanio’s business, Mekanio’s founders, together with the rest of their team, designed and manufactured an element torsion device for Trenox Oy in the Product Development Project course at Aalto University. The purpose of the device is to facilitate the handling of turnstones on a construction site, where turnstone operations usually require two cranes per site. With the element turning device, the site can cope with one crane.

Areas of device design:

• Concept design
• Frame design
• Strength calculations and simulations
• Wind load calculations
• Sizing of components
• Design of hydraulic systems
• Electrical and automation design
• Manufacturing design

Components of the implementation of the device:

• Procurement
• Frame assembly and welding
• Surface treatment
• Assembly and installation of all systems
• Implementation of electrical and automation systems
• Testing

The team that designed and implemented the device consisted mainly of the people who later founded Mekanio Oy.

Read more in the article in kauppalehti: https://www.tekniikkatalous.fi/uutiset/betonielelementin-kaanto-turvalliseksi-nain-se-kaantyy-ilman-nostureita-video/fd93e66b-2906-4189-9ac8-e5b50158efae

Janavalo Oy is a company specialising in sheet metal work in Tureng, Finland, employing around 25 welders in four locations. Janavalo’s objective was to acquire flexible and easy-to-use robotic welding equipment.

We designed and delivered a collaborative robotic welding cell tailored to Janavalo’s needs. The end result is a collaborative robotic cell that doubles the output of a single welder. Read more about the article published in Welding Technology magazine by clicking on the image.

Read more about this project in Welding Technology magazine HERE

Mekanio Oy was commissioned by the food company Herkkumaa Oy in Windhoek to modify their existing cardboard handling equipment. The machine is used to move cardboard sheets by means of suction cups operating under vacuum. The problem with the original version of the cardboard manipulator was, above all, that the manufacturing materials were too rigid and, as a result, the manipulator was too heavy. The heavy weight put unnecessary strain on the attachment mechanisms of the device and prevented the device from operating at the desired cycle rate. Mekanio Oy was therefore left with the task of designing and implementing a significant lightening of the device, but in such a way that the device could withstand heavy industrial use.

The original structure consisted of a 40×80 m RHS tube beam and a grab frame welded from a furniture tube. Here, in particular, the beam structure was oversized, given the low weight of the cardboard sheets to be moved. The grab frame was also unnecessarily heavy.

We decided to build a new manipulator using aluminium sheet, carbon fibre and plastic as the main materials. The dimensions of the beam were slightly modified and the beam was made from two-millimetre aluminium sheet. The cross-sectional shape remained a rectangle. Two halves of the beam were cut and folded and TIG-welded together. The outer end of the beam was welded with an aluminium sleeve into which the oil-bronze sliding bearing sleeves were pressed. The inner end was further articulated with a steel rod and bearing cups.

The frame of the grabber was made of two 3D-printed halves and aluminium plates on the outside. These were used to build a sandwich structure with compression to hold the grabber’s carbon fibre frame tubes in place. The suction cup clamps at the ends of the frame tubes were also 3D printed. The device was finished by stiffening the manipulator wall bracket. This reduced the weight of the manipulator by several kilograms and shifted the weight distribution closer to the wall bracket. This allows the machine to move cardboard at a higher speed and with less stress on the attachment mechanisms and the machine itself.

Tapio Technologies is a company based in Espoo, specialising in paper measuring technology and has supplied paper measuring instruments and equipment all over the world. Mekanio Oy was commissioned by Tapio Technologies to redesign their new product, the RQP MW moisture meter. It was decided to keep the measuring technology of the moisture meter identical to the prototype and the redesign focused on improving the housing, user ergonomics and overall quality appearance of the instrument.

After joint design meetings, the decision was made to use milled aluminium parts, a milled aluminium base plate, 3D printed end pieces and smaller parts. Some of the parts were manufactured in-house at Mechanio and others were ordered as finished parts. The spring mechanism for measuring the instrument was implemented with so-called flexure springs instead of the original coil spring mechanism.

The dimensions and weight of the device increased slightly from the original, but this did not affect the ergonomics of the device, on the contrary. The overall ergonomics and quality appearance of the device have been significantly improved as a result of the modifications. In addition, the larger physical size of the instrument will make it easier to integrate additional features or sensors in the future.

Kymppitaito Oy is a company specialising in the manufacture of hydraulic cylinders from Koski tl. Kymppitaito manufactures more than 10 000 hydraulic cylinders per year, with machining being the major part of their production.

The collaborative robot cell manufactured for Kymppitaito Oy is a complete solution for the production of cylinder bearing races. The cell is based on a FEMCO CNC lathe, a Universal Robots UR10e collaborative robot, a custom-built measuring device and a machine vision system.

Cobot picks up blanks from the blanks table using machine vision, so there is no need to use any picking jigs on the blanks table to position the pieces. The elimination of the need for picking jigs facilitates the changeover of products in production, as there is no need for continuous jig changes or for new jigs for new products.

To minimise the cycle time of the lathe, the cobot is equipped with a dual starter – the first gripper removes the finished workpiece from the lathe stack, after which the second gripper places a new blank in the lathe stack. This gives the robot time to perform a quality check of the finished part and pick up the new blank during the execution of the lathe program.

A special feature of the cell is a measuring device of Mekanio’s own design, which ensures the inside dimension of turned parts with precise tolerances. Before measuring the parts, they are run through a cleaning station where compressed air nozzles blow the parts clean of cutting fluid and chips. The cobot then transfers the piece to the measuring machine. The measuring device is implemented with a pneumatic three-point measuring system using a Heidenhain manufacturing measuring rod. The measuring device’s control panel sets upper and lower limits for the measurement results, which, when exceeded or not, signal the robot to move the workpiece to the pallet. The advantage of our custom-made measuring device over commercial solutions was the speed of measurement and the cost of implementation.

FEMCO’s lathe control had no interface to the robot, so communication between the lathe and the robot was achieved by additional wiring to switches on the lathe’s control panel. The door of the lathe was made pneumatic and status monitoring sensors were added to the door to increase the safety of operation.