Whats Up with Robotic Milling?
Joe Campbell is director, strategic alliances, for KUKA Robotics (Clinton Township, MI, and Augsburg, Germany), a robotics manufacturer that recently announced new robotic milling capabilities for metalcutting and prototyping applications. Manufacturing Engineering: How can robotic milling help improve manufacturing productivity? Joe Campbell: For the right application, robotic milling can deliver higher throughput, lower capital costs, reduced floor space, and increased flexibility. Throughput is realized by increasing the overall efficiency relative to a traditional machine tool, by increasing the amount of time the mill head is actually removing material. Even a simple cell layout can have multiple part fixtures in the robot’s work envelope, allowing an operator to fixture one part while the robot is milling. While this functionality is available on more advanced FMS systems, even the most basic robot cell offers this capability, and with a very short transition cycle. The mill head
