Karlsruhe, Germany – Based mostly on a complete evaluation of the manufacturing processes for hexapods (Stewart Platforms), Physik Instrumente (PI) has tailored its manufacturing capacities to the sharp enhance in demand and is ready to broaden them even additional when required. The main target of the restructuring was the optimization and relocation of PI’s whole “Hexapod” micro-robotics manufacturing space to newly designed premises, in addition to the growth of the workforce. These measures are an integral a part of the company-wide funding program with a quantity of near $70 million. The goal is to capitalize on PI’s above-average development alternatives in markets corresponding to Industrial Automation, Semiconductors, Photonics, Microscopy and Life Sciences.
Picture Credit score: PI (Physick Instrumente) LP
“The demand for hexapod micro- and nano-positioning methods has been growing considerably for quite a few years,” says Markus Spanner, CEO of PI, describing the market scenario. “Increasing capability on this product division at PI’s Karlsruhe, Germany web site was due to this fact a logical step as a part of our funding program to arrange all PI product divisions for a continued enhance in demand.”
The brand new hexapod manufacturing manufacturing unit format was developed by PI consultants, with the assist of specialists from the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA. It takes the most recent findings within the fields of ergonomics, digitalization, and automation, in addition to lean approaches under consideration. “We now have analyzed all course of steps and optimized and reorganized meeting within the type of matrix manufacturing,” explains Dr. Axel Widenhorn, Director Operations for the PI growth and manufacturing websites in Germany. “Along with an total enhance in manufacturing capacities, our objective was to considerably cut back lead occasions. This has been totally achieved. We now have already diminished lead occasions to lower than half of what they had been originally of the 12 months and shall be down to some weeks for normal merchandise by the tip of the 12 months. Moreover, we now have the potential of accelerating the output by greater than 100 %, which is able to enable us to reply flexibly to additional will increase in demand,” provides Dr. Widenhorn
Hexapods are 6-axis, parallel kinematic movement methods or micro-robots, with six levels of freedom which are utilized in an growing variety of purposes together with: micro-assembly manufacturing traces, fiber optical alignment, Silicon Photonics wafer probing, digicam testing, satellite tv for pc antenna testing, microscopy, and enormous astronomical telescopes. PI has an intensive portfolio of configurable options of assorted sizes and capabilities for these and plenty of different purposes. The redesigned manufacturing unit format for PI’s hexapod manufacturing was developed in response to the most recent ergonomic findings and taking lean ideas under consideration. Because of this, capacities have been considerably elevated whereas lead occasions have been shortened on the identical time.