Automation Robotics and Controls (ARC) is a small company of about 25 employees, and its president, Brandon Haley, says, “We think that’s a sweet spot.” The system integrator isn’t so big that it needs a large corporate structure or massive travel budgets, but, at the same time, it is equipped to tackle many jobs for large and small manufacturers. “It’s a balancing act,” Haley says. “You have to take the right type of jobs, the right number of jobs, the right suitable level of jobs in the right industries, and it’s an imperfect process that we keep striving to do better at.” ARC’s balance of new projects, service work and retrofits changes with the economic tides and the overall market ebb and flow, but, no matter what, the nimble team is tackling innovative projects, namely robot and servo integrations for precision motion applications.
Get your subscription to Control Design’s daily newsletter.
ARC robotics excel for welding and material handling
ARC’s core business is custom equipment, and welding makes up a large percentage of its business, followed by material handling. Aerospace and automotive are also major industries that ARC works in, as well as government work. The company tries to keep a broad focus on general industry overall, as part of that balancing act. “We may have a person working on a flying shear for a large crane manufacturer one day and then be at a commercial bakery working on equipment to put icing on cupcakes,” Haley says.
Haley describes ARC as “a specialty motion control company.” It focuses on machine applications with industrial robots for tasks like welding, material handling and assembly, programmable logic controller (PLC) integration from process automation and control, motion control systems for precision movement and positioning, vision system for quality inspection and process guidance, and servo drives and motors for high-performance motion applications.
Typical turnaround time for an average project is three to four months, depending on the size and type of components. “Sometimes purchases like robots, conveyors, servo motors and some other equipment cause the project to take longer. Retrofits for just controls can turn around much faster for most systems. We have integrated retrofits on an emergency basis within a week for an entire system. We have also done emergency retrofits the same day if we have all the components,” Haley says.
ARC employs three mechanical engineers, four programmers, three electrical project managers, one technician, four shop craftsmen for welding, fabrication and panel wiring, plus sales and administration staff.
Motion control innovations for custom equipment and retrofitting
Wading the economic tides can be challenging but necessary for balancing work loads and its cyclical nature. “One of the hardest things to do is predict the market, as many people will tell you,” Haley says. “If the economy is doing well, we see an increase in equipment purchases that are more expensive but generally produce more for the end user. If the economy is not stable, then we see a pickup in integration and programming for retrofits or less expensive purchases. With ARC’s capabilities, knowing this trend and timing allows us to shift and focus on the correct aspects of the business when this happens.” He says every election year everyone gets a little skittish, and companies are more likely to wait on projects. However, the wait puts strain on the industry and individual companies. “Generally, there’s always a problem with waiting. Waiting does nothing for most people except cause more financial issues because it puts a load and strain on them while they’re waiting, so they’ve got to do something, and then, when they do release it, it’s a flood date because a lot of people do the same thing, so we get a load of jobs that come in all at once.” While ARC welcomes the influx of work, “predicting economic cycles is sometimes challenging,” Haley says.
One way ARC balances the economic cycles is with service work. “Let’s say capital work goes down because the economy starts doing poorly, our service picks up because companies are still going to manufacture. We prioritize our service and customers who need service because we want to make sure that, no matter how great of a product they get, if they can’t’ get it worked on, it’s not a great product.”
On the flip side, Haley says he doesn’t want the company to become too service-oriented. “Our engineers want to continue to be application-based and equipment-based and offer service as a supplemental thing,” Haley says. It’s the delicate balancing act.
The company is also very experienced with working on very old systems and older technology, so retrofitting makes up a good part of its business, as well. Combined with a solid knowledge of newer equipment and technology, ARC excels at knowing “how new and old systems work differently and how to put them back together,” Haley says.
A lot of manufacturers don’t want to change their mechanical processes, Haley says. They know what works for their application but want to upgrade and expand with new automation. “You have to know the nuances of how systems work to be able to put new controls on them,” he adds. “We are able to come in with a retrofit. You don’t need a new machine that’s going to cost you several million dollars. You just need a nice, clean retrofit that is going to be up to standard with your controls.”
By reverse engineering electrical systems, older systems, architectures, programs that can’t be removed from older system, equipment that came from overseas and even newer equipment that companies can’t find proper support for, ARC excels at those retrofit solution projects.
Case study: rotisserie-style welding for helical anchors
ARC designed and implemented a custom welding machine for a helical anchor manufacturer with a Yaskawa robot, using a dual robot system with a rotisserie-style trunnion. The helical anchors are for anchoring mobile homes, and the welding process for the anchors was being done manually by experienced welders that were fast and precise, but it was still extremely labor-intensive and difficult to remain consistent. The engineer doing the mechanical work brought ARC onto the project to design a fixture for the robotic system that could load four anchors on each side of the system (Figure 1).
“You have two servos that allow the fixtures to rotate and then a third servo that rotates the whole rotisserie,” Haley says. Two robots are stationed in the back, where a set of four parts can be welded, while the operator loads the opposite site. “The helical welds were accomplished by using coordinated motion between the table servos and the robotic arm servos. The fixturing also could be configured to run more than 40 different part variations,” Haley says. The welding process for each anchor was not extremely fast, about 30 seconds, but the robots also had to be able to weld 80 different anchor parts.
Case study: component vision tracking system
ARC also designed a custom vision tracking system for part serial numbers for a manufacturer that supplies parts to the aerospace industry. The system used a Cognex camera to track serial numbers for many different components. The system could read and identify parts, log them into the system, verify if the parts met standard criteria for each component and then issue a pass or fail. It was a double check for the casting process and served as a data-logging system.
“If they had a problem with a component that made it to the customer, and it was in aerospace, it could be mission-critical, and they needed a way to trace it back to where it ran through the process,” Haley says. “If they had to remake a component, they had to make sure that the serial numbers weren’t duplicated in the field. This was their funnel to log all that data.”
The system had its own local log to a Rockwell Automation Allen-Bradley PLC to the Cognex system and a C-more EA9 HMI display from AutomationDirect. The system could also be backed up or expanded to another database system or SD card. Haley says this was a smaller machine that didn‘t need a complex HMI. It displayed the data array with a timestamp, and the operator can index through the large catalog of parts.
ARC also did all the mechanical design on the project so the operators could easily change out the one of two fixtures, via a handle system with four bolts or pins. “They could pick the plate up, move the plate, put a new plate in, and then change the part number,” Haley says.
