Two-thirds fewer failures: multi-axis energy chains for robots in car factory

• What was needed: triflex® R energy chain; triflex® RS universal module
• Requirements: a safe and flexible cable solution with a retraction system was needed to prevent the cable from falling into the robot's working area; the solution also needed to be easy and quick to maintain
• Industry: automotive industry
• Success for the customer: instead of 22 faults, there are now only 7.5 incidents on average per week; maintenance time has fallen from 55 hours per week to 7-11; the customer also benefits from a quickly maintainable chain solution that saves additional costs and time

Jaguar Cars Limited needed to find a new cable routing for the automated industrial robots in a car factory.
The hose with the various power and signal cables was causing significant problems during operation, regularly falling into the robot's working area and blocking it. The hose also touched sensitive panels and damaged individual components. The cable routing caused high downtimes with a total of 527 failures within 25 weeks. An average of 22 faults and 55 minutes of maintenance work per week meant high costs in ongoing operations. If an incident occurred in which a cable was damaged, all plug connections had to be laboriously removed for replacement. This further increased maintenance costs. Attempts to reprogramme the robot's movement sequences to prevent the cable from falling also failed. As the hose became increasingly worn, it fell into different positions over time, which meant that only a completely new solution was an option.

As an alternative to the cable conduit, the project managers examined various solutions and finally came across the triflex® R energy chain. The 3D chain has been specially developed for robot applications. Together with the triflex® RS universal module, it was the perfect answer to the problems in the application. The particularly compact universal module is mounted on the robot at existing attachment points and can also be used in combination with the triflex® R chain in confined spaces. It ensures the energy supply to the robot head safely and without cable stress. Thanks to the retraction module, the universal module retracts the cable with every movement, so that the work area always remains free from now on. This has reduced downtime by two thirds (from an average of 55 to 7.5 faults per week). In addition, only 7-11 minutes of average maintenance work was required per week instead of 55 minutes. Even in the event of a major problem, maintenance is significantly simplified thanks to the modular design of the triflex®. The chain can be opened so that the cable and the feed cable no longer have to be laboriously removed at the ends when replacing them.
The results were so satisfactory that the use of the system for other BIW systems is also being investigated.