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Cellro sells 10th Elevate

In September 2018, Elevate was introduced during the AMB in Stuttgart. Elevate is a robotic loading system characterized by a large storage capacity, small floor space and high flexibility. It turned out to be a great success. Now, more than a year later, ten Elevates have already been sold by Cellro. Flowserve, supplier of pumps, mechanical seals and valves and based in Etten-Leur, was recently the tenth customer. In this article we look back on the development of Elevate and look ahead.

Need for increased storage capacity

Before Elevate was developed, Cellro already had success with Xcelerate, the flexible automation solution. It enables our customers to flexibly automate small to medium series. In practice, there was also an increasing need for a loading system with a larger storage capacity. This applies especially to machining companies that make their own product. Thus began the development of Elevate.

From Traylift to total solution

The predecessor of Elevate was our Traylift. It could be connected to a robot cell and provided a larger storage capacity. However, the Traylift could not be used as a stand-alone system. With Elevate Cellro developed a robot loading system that integrated the Traylift. Due to the large warehouse at the machine, continuous production can be carried out without any worries. With a larger storage capacity, there is often also a greater diversity of products that are processed automatically. This gave our customers a need for more insight and overview in the production. Cellro has been able to integrate this into the Elevate software by means of extra functionality.

Endless possibilities

Elevate is equipped with a large robot that also enables pallet handling. Another robot can also be chosen, because it is separate from Elevate. As a result, the pallet and the clamp can be chosen freely. This also makes it possible to load a pallet with a fixed product. Last but not least: Elevate can be connected to two machines at the same time, also at a later time. This also makes it a future-oriented automation solution. The result is total peace of mind for our customers.

Elevate-2-workflows

Practical experiences

What generally appeals to customers is that Elevate is a closed system that produces continuously and can be loaded and unloaded during production. Because two workflows can take place at the same time, the production process never needs to be disrupted.

Imminkhuizen Metaaltechniek B.V., the very first Elevate customer, uses Elevate’s large storage capacity to prevent machine downtime. Previously, Imminkhuizen, supplier of machine parts, could only prepare a new series once the previous one had been finished. With Elevate, everything can already be planned. Thanks to the automatic change of grippers and clamps (by means of Fixture Exchange) products of various sizes can be machined one after the other unmanned.

Another customer praises Elevate for the software. In this way, human errors are carefully and concretely filtered out of the process: in case of an error, you immediately see what is wrong and where the error is. Flowserve, Elevate’s newest user, is going to use the system for a multi-task machine in combination with the Collet Exchange function. They will run small series with a wide variety of parts to create their own product.

The future of Elevate

Elevate users can expand the robot loading system with various additional options if required. For example, a measuring station, a docking station for pallets or a cabinet with extra pallets or clamps can easily be added. Furthermore, it is expected that Elevate will be increasingly used by new customers with complex production planning. The possibilities offered by Elevate, in combination with the user-friendly control, offers a lot of peace and quiet and an overview of production processes.