With Delfoi ARC and Visual Components, Ponsse was able to reduce the programming time of a robot by several days.
Ponsse, a world leader in forestry machines
Ponsse Plc. is a Finnish company specializing in sales, service, manufacturing and technology development related to cut-to-length forestry machines. Ponsse is definitely a global leader in the forestry machinery industry as it employs more than 1,000 people, has subsidiaries in 10 countries and manufactures a wide range of harvesters, forwarders and other machines.
Currently, the company manufactures around 1,000 machines per year. To stay ahead of the competition, Ponsse also commissions around one new robot station per year.
Previously, programming the robots was done online and it took about five days. Online programming also meant that the robot had to be stopped during programming. Naturally, this led to serious cost problems as manufacturing was easily delayed.
Offline programming of welding robots
In order to significantly reduce the programming time of a robot, Ponsse has adopted an offline programming solution. The solution is the result of a close partnership with two independent and successful software developers: Delfoi and Visual Components. Known as Delfoi ARC, the solution combines Delfoi's knowledge of offline programming with the powerful Visual Components platform.
The Delfoi ARC software is used, for example, to program the Yaskawa robots which weld the chassis of forestry machines. Programs can be very complex and take 3 to 4 hours to complete. Besides offline programming, typical tasks include robot weldability studies in the product design phase.
Delfoi ARC is not only used when introducing new products, but also in the refinement of existing programs, as Ponsse is committed to continuous development. When designing new robot cells, Ponsse also uses 3DCreate from Visual Components as a layout tool.
Instead of the five days that programming previously took, programming can now be completed in just two days. Best of all, the robots don't have to be stopped for the duration of programming so manufacturing can continue while the robots are scheduled.
For more information about Delfoi ARC, visit delfoi.com
