We have come to expect industrial automation company Sepro Group (La Roche-sur-Yon, France) to announce partnerships with injection molding machine makers—Haitian, Sumitomo Demag, Stork IMM and Billion are among a dozen companies with which it collaborates—but this time it is striking a deal with another robotics company. Sepro announced yesterday that it has signed an agreement with collaborative robotics pioneer Universal Robots (UR; Odense, Denmark) to integrate Sepro’s Visual control system with UR cobots.
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Universal Robots President Jürgen von Hollen (left) and Jean-Michel Renaudeau, CEO of Sepro Group, sign the partnership agreement at the Universal Robots headquarters in Odense, Denmark. |
All Sepro products, including co-branded lines, are controlled by the Visual system, which was developed especially for its robots used in plastics injection molding equipment. The collaboration with UR ensures seamless integration of UR's technology with other Sepro robots and the molding machine, said Sepro in a press release. “This will allow customers to design safe, open configurations for various types of processes, including peripheral operations or advanced automation cells. The new solutions from Sepro and UR ensure shortened process-development times and faster installation, resulting in easy-to-deploy, easy-to-test post-processing operations and turn-key automation systems,” said the company.
“The combination of Sepro Group know-how with the ground-breaking collaborative technologies developed by Universal Robots will allow our customers even greater flexibility and choice in how they approach automation in the plastic injection process,” said Sepro CEO Jean-Michel Renaudeau in a prepared statement.
UR President Jürgen von Hollen echoed that sentiment, applauding Sepro’s experience and knowledge in automating manufacturing processes. “Together, the two companies will be able to provide efficient, safe and easy to use solutions for a wide range of customers within the plastic injection industry,” said von Hollen.
The partnership will allow Sepro to deliver what it calls the most extensive range of automation solutions to injection molders of the plastics industry. The portfolio includes Cartesian robots, six-axis articulated-arm robots and now cobots. Like the six-axis robots, cobots are adapted to peripheral operations that are increasingly in demand in the plastics industry, said Sepro.
Under the terms of the agreement, Sepro will provide global service for solutions from Sepro and UR. With more than 150 experts and 42 service centers around the world, Sepro will be able to deliver local support and the same quality of service on cobots as it does on Cartesian and six-axis robots.
Sepro will feature automation innovations stemming from the new partnership at K 2019 in Düsseldorf, Germany, in October.
Meanwhile, in Toronto . . .
Sepro also will be exhibiting at PLAST-EX, coming to Toronto on June 4 to 6, 2019. At the event, which is part of the Advanced Design & Manufacturing Expo, the company will highlight its Success 11, part of its three-axis, servo-controlled robotics line designed to quickly and precisely perform pick-and-place operations around an injection molding machine.
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The Success 11 has an 88 to 198 ton mold-clamping force and 1500 to 3500 mm horizontal stroke. It can be equipped with the Touch 2 control system or Visual 2 for more complex applications.
Sepro will exhibit at booth 303.
