Booth Tour: This is how the KUKA SmartFactory works

With the largest networked exhibition application in its history, KUKA combines technologies, products, solutions and capabilities into a highly flexible, networked production.

The Smart Factory is capable of manufacturing, packaging and supplying a highly customized product for trade fair visitors in an extremely short cycle time. The product is a puzzle, manufactured in a batch size of 1, that the visitors can take home with them. 

Industrie 4.0 live demo: A walkthrough of the entire SmartFactory in the KUKA booth

From creating the picture to the finished puzzle, we show provide you all stations of the KUKA SmartFactory in detail in these movies.

A customized product - turned out in record time 

The visitor at the KUKA booth can start the order process at a terminal or online using a smartphone or tablet. The visitors choose their own individual image for their puzzle: In addition to default images, they can also upload their own photos or have a photographer take a picture of them standing next to a mobile, autonomous KMR iiwa robot.
A cloud-based analysis function classifies the uploaded images, describes and categorizes them and rejects inappropriate content to prevent puzzles with unsuitable images being printed. The visitors are then able to determine the shape of the puzzle pieces and place the order.


Visitors at the KUKA booth can design an individual souvenir and have it produced in the SmartFactory.
The puzzle moves through all of the automated production steps in less than 15 minutes: the materials are fetched from storage, the image is printed, the puzzle pieces are cut by a laser, the image is glued onto folder and the product is supplied via a buffer store and repository.

The visitors can view the production status of their puzzle online at any time and are notified when the puzzle is complete.
Through the intelligent cooperation of all KUKA companies, the puzzle is produced directly at the KUKA booth.
After 15 minutes, the individually created puzzle is finished. 

Staying on top of progress at all times 

A key element of the Smart Factory is "Synchronized Intelligence", or SynQ for short, the new software platform from Swisslog. It controls and monitors all of the logistical work steps that are related to the puzzle production process, from the order process and the organization of packaging materials right through to the collection process. SynQ makes use of an interface to communicate with the robots and system components and also communicates with each customer by email. The software creates replenishment orders, arranges the delivery of materials and produces statistics for all of the automated processes. This ensures that the processes are transparent and verifiable.  

All of the robots, cells and logistics in the Smart Factory are linked via the cloud-based software solution KUKA Connect. Thanks to the standardized interface of the KUKA SmartProduction solution, it is possible to observe and analyze the status of the Smart Factory and detect any potential malfunctions or imminent failures in good time. By minimizing downtimes, this reduces the costs of day-to-day production.

KUKA's wealth of expertise in one system

The Smart Factory demonstrates that the flexible production systems of the future know no limits. A broad spectrum of services, machines, robots and software platforms can be linked to one another without making system operation too complex. In fact, an intuitive interface allows every customer, or in this case, the trade fair visitors, to operate the Smart Factory with ease.

The Smart Factory is the product of a clever collaboration involving all of the KUKA companies: robotics and system expertise from KUKA Systems, Industries and Robotics as well as production logistics from the Swisslog subsidiary. Add to this the IT and software expertise of various partners. With this combined know-how, KUKA is able to support its customers from the initial idea right through to the final factory system and is also able to advise customers, because every production is different and the opportunities of smart networking are varied.

 

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