Can press fit assembly be automated?

Insertion is where force sensing earns its money. A position controlled robot either misses the hole or breaks the part; a force controlled one finds it the way a person does.

Free, about two minutes, no phone number. You get an honest no when a robot is the wrong answer.

What the job actually is

Somebody presses a bearing, pin, bushing or connector into a mating part. Success depends on alignment and on feeling when something is not seating correctly.

Signs it is worth automating

• The insertion is repetitive and the components are consistent.
• Bad seats are escaping and causing warranty or rework cost.
• Operators report strain from press or insertion force.
• You need insertion force recorded for traceability.

What the cell looks like

A 3 to 16 kg class arm with a force torque sensor, or a collaborative arm with built in force sensing, over a fixture. The sensor lets the cell search for the hole and detect a bad seat rather than driving blindly.

This is one job inside a bigger family. The assembly and screwdriving guide covers the equipment classes, the cost ranges, and the disqualifiers for all of it.

When the answer is no

• Component tolerances are loose enough that a chamfer would fix the problem more cheaply.
• Volumes are low and an arbor press with a fixture is sufficient.
• The parts are fragile enough that any misalignment destroys them and your fixture cannot guarantee alignment.
• You have not measured what insertion force actually is on good and bad parts.

What an engineer has to verify

• Actual insertion force profile measured on good and bad assemblies.
• Component tolerance stack and whether a chamfer or lead in would help.
• Whether force data must be recorded per unit.
• Fixture location accuracy against the required alignment.
• What the cell does with a detected bad seat: reject, retry or flag.

Safety is not on that list because it is not ours to determine. Cell design, guarding and the risk assessment belong to an independent certified integrator, every time.

What the research says

Peer reviewed work from our research library on this application. These are studies of other plants and other settings, not a prediction about yours, and the excerpts are the authors' own words. Every title links to the source so you can check us.

• Design of Human-Centered Collaborative Assembly Workstations for the Improvement of Operators’ Physical Ergonomics and Production Efficiency: A Case Study Luca Gualtieri et al. (2020), Sustainability

  From the abstract: “Industrial collaborative robotics is one of the main enabling technologies of Industry 4.0.”

• Friend or Foe? Understanding Assembly Workers’ Acceptance of Human-robot Collaboration Antonia Meißner et al. (2020), ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction

  From the abstract: “Due to rising demands on productivity and flexibility, assembly processes are currently experiencing a substantial transformation.”

• Balancing collaborative human-robot assembly lines to optimise cycle time and ergonomic risk Kathryn E. Stecke and Mahdi Mokhtarzadeh (2021), International Journal of Production Research

  From the abstract: “Human-robot collaboration can enhance productivity of production lines and reduce human ergonomic risk.”

• Safety Design and Development of a Human-Robot Collaboration Assembly Process in the Automotive Industry Sahar Heydaryan et al. (2018), Applied Sciences

  From the abstract: “Human-robot collaboration (HRC) is a complex procedure in manufacturing due to the problems posed by compatibility and operational safety among humans and robots, and by task definitions among them in a collaborative order.”

• Development and validation of guidelines for safety in human-robot collaborative assembly systems Luca Gualtieri et al. (2021), Computers & Industrial Engineering

  From the abstract: “Industrial collaborative robotics is one of the most promising technologies of Industry 4.0.”

The full assembly, screwdriving and fastening shelf has 14 works.

Someone has already done this

See it run

Two clips of this job actually running, from two different manufacturers. Both are the makers' own marketing footage, showing a cell under good conditions with a part it was set up for, so watch them for what the motion looks like rather than as evidence of what your rate would be.