What Are the Benefits of an Automated Assembly Line With Linear Motion Systems?

The drive for automation has been a key part of processing and manufacturing since the Industrial Revolution, with manufacturers looking to create efficiencies, reduce costs, and free up people so that they can best use their skills.

With the momentum through Industry 4.0 and the Industrial Internet of Things (IloT) helping to drive automation, solutions are becoming slicker and more reliable and are providing immediately measurable results. We take a look at linear automation products such as linear rails and linear ball screws and find out how they fit into the IIoT and the benefits of an automated assembly line with linear motion systems. Learn all you need to know here at Matara.

The Benefits of an Automated Assembly Line

There are many benefits to using an automated assembly line. Automation doesn’t just remove the risk of error and create faster, more efficient processes—the same is true of industrial automation. Here are just some of the benefits of automation.

Increased production

Perhaps the most significant benefit of automation is removing human error and ensuring that each product is consistent and designed. The assembly line can also run continuously without breaking, producing more output.

Improved worker safety

Linear motion systems improve workplace safety by ensuring that humans will not need direct contact with the production line, removing all dangerous tasks that could lead to injuries. 

Higher quality for lower costs

Having an automated production line ensures that each product created is of the same quality, with less chance of defects and mistakes. The linear motion system will also reduce production costs through increased efficiency and accuracy. 

What is the IIoT?

The Industrial Internet of Things is an extension of the more commonly used Internet of Things (IoT), but it focuses on industrial settings. The concept behind the IIoT is that businesses and industries as a whole should be able to achieve better efficiencies and more reliable output and service through the use of machine-to-machine (M2M) communication, big data, and machine learning.

How is the IIoT driving automation?

Automation is a trend that is rapidly picking up pace, pushed on significantly by the pandemic over the past year as the shift toward greater automation became, and is predicted to remain, a trend within businesses of all sizes. It impacts every part of how businesses function, from customer engagement, KPIs, management techniques and goals, and RPA (robotic process automation), where the need for human intervention is removed from repetitive tasks and removes the potential for human error. 

How will linear automation products be used within automated environments?

Almost every aspect of production automation in industrial systems relies on a motion control system. Linear motion control systems provide accurate and repeatable motion in a straight line. While the actuators are responsible for converting energy into motion, the linear rails provide the guidance and structural support for that movement.

As with industries around the globe, linear rails are a critical element of linear automation products in the UK. Examples of using UK linear rails in an automated environment could include gantry robots for positioning loads, pick-and-place operations and filling operations in automated warehouses, cutting equipment as part of a production line, valve operation, and process control.

How could a linear ball screw be used as part of an automation process?

A linear ball screw turns rotational movement into linear movement in an exact and repeatable way. A threaded shaft provides a winding path for ball bearings, which behave like a screw while providing minimal friction. If a stepper motor drives the shaft of the linear ball screw, then the nut can be located with extreme precision, at high speed, and very reliably. Any load or tooling attached to the nut can then be made—via motion control—to replicate any linear action usually performed by hand. Multiple axis can be achieved by combining several threads to provide many degrees of freedom in 2- or even 3-dimensional space.

Linear ball screws provide accurate, fast, reliable movement in a way that a person could not hope to achieve manually. When set up and used in the right way—integrated through IIoT with other automated systems—linear automation products such as linear ball screws are crucial to ensuring that processing and manufacturing environments run efficiently and with precision, improving output levels and, ultimately, providing operations that will be able to compete within a global marketplace that is fast becoming dominated by automated businesses that embrace Industry 4.0.

Find Linear Motion System solutions at Matara

If you would like to know more about the kinds of linear automation solutions available here at Matara, including linear ball screws, lead screws, ball splines, and much more, be sure to contact us, and a member of our team will be happy to help. Alternatively, if you want to learn more about our linear motion systems and how they can help your business, be sure to check out our case studies and blog for all you need to know.