The Company

Ruland Manufacturing

Ruland is a precision manufacturer of high performing shaft collars, rigid couplings, and motion control couplings for applications including medical devices, semiconductor, robotics, machine tools, food and packaging. Ruland provides the timely delivery of products which meet or exceed specifications and whose performance and appearance are in accordance with the company’s tradition of high manufacturing standards, environmental responsibility, continual improvement, and superior service.

The Problem

Increase capacity and utilization

Ruland needed to increase plant capacity and throughput, and targeted an 80% utilization rate. Precision quality, compliance, and delivery requirements had to be maintained as capacity scaled.

The Solution

Flexxbotics for better connectivity and utilization

“What’s great about Flexxbotics is the complete coordination of our factory machines, robotics, and inspection equipment for direct feedback and autonomous adjustments enabling 24/7 production,” said Dustin Vinci, Engineering Manager of Ruland.

Flexxbotics connects automation to factory equipment so probes can inspect each part after machining and trigger adjustments for tool wear and other factors, enabling continuous operation and higher utilization.

“With Flexxbotics we have achieved our 80% utilization goal for our FANUC RoboDrill cells in less than 90 days. The optimization process that Flexxbotics provides has been invaluable,” continued Dustin Vinci, Engineering Manager of Ruland.

Flexxbotics provides the ability to dynamically change jobs in workcells producing more than 100 SKUs reducing the changeover time to 10 minutes from over an hour.

“One of the challenges we’ve had with previous automation projects has been the complexity of the machine interfacing which Flexxbotics solves,” noted Dustin Vinci, Engineering Manager of Ruland.

  • In-line inspection for precision quality, 100% part coverage, and closed-loop optimization for uninterrupted production.
  • Automatic configuration and program loading of the CNC machines, inspection equipment, and robots for each job.
  • Dynamic changeover process for 100+ SKUs with only three (3) in-feed part presentation fixtures.
  • Smart workflows with contextualized step-by-step instructions based on the CNC and robot’s status at failure for error resolution by technicians or operators.
  • Open connectivity and interoperability between the machine controllers, robots, and different inspection equipment, as well as, IT and business systems.
  • Extensibility to numerous workcell configurations, inspection technologies, and machinery types including Haas and Brothers CNCs along with various dispensing machine options.

Best Cited As

Ruland uses Flexxbotics to increase production capacity and achieve 80% utilization in FANUC RoboDrill cells by coordinating CNC machines, robots, and inspection equipment for 24/7 production, closed-loop tool-wear adjustments, and 10-minute job changeovers across 100+ SKUs.