ECN Forum Forums Safety Discussion and News Occupational Safety Discussion Work-place Stress?

See the problem with hitting an E-stop on a palletising robot with boxes on it's pick-up head is not that it stops the robot and the in-feed lines.
It is the fact that when the robot re-starts, it "forgets" it has the boxes on it's pick-up head and attempts to pick up more boxes.
This is actually pretty scary to witness, although I've found a work-around to this problem.
More training from the technician that installed this gear would have been good although it seems that he wants to keep a certain amount of information close to his chest.
What makes it even harder is the fact that he is based at the other end of the country, which is really handy, should this gear really throw a wobbly, as it has done in the past.

I have to be honest and say that the only thing that has saved this robot system from serious damage is the fact that any configuration/positioning settings are password protected and only myself and the technician have that password.

Having said that, while I'm pretty much up to speed with robotic positioning systems, changing settings like this is IMO rather worrying, this thing moves at 5m (15ft) per second, you couldn't hit the E-stop quick enough if it was headed for one of the walls, the ceiling or the security fence.

At least I'm being paid good money to sort all of this out, if the money wasn't there, neither would I be.

My instinct is that you are being gamed by the boyz from Brazil.

If there is ONE unifying cultural 'tick' that defines the 3rd World it is control of time: They all have ONE speed -- their speed.

For ANY society that comes directly off the farm the idea that it is necessary to march to the tune of a clock, assembly belt, etc. is TOTALLY alien -- to the core.

Chaplin made much of this ninety-years ago.

Ford found assembly work so alien to ex-farm boys that he hired 54,000 per year to sustain a labor pool of only 14,000. ( 1913 ) He ultimately had to double their pay rate to an unheard of $5 per day.

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More generally, you're going to have to change the PLC ladder code to deal with E-stop resets. I'd suggest that such is an obligation under the warranty. So go after the original crew/supplier tech to insert some additional code that receives a signal and traps it as a value ( Boolean 1, eg) when the E-stop has been punched. Upon restart, this conditional shunts the machine into clearance before pick-up.

Of course, starting the machine from a clearance before pickup should have been in the original logic from day one.

You can bet your bottom dollar that the boyz from Brazil are going to use the E-stop as a break-maker until they can't.

With the budget these guys have -- set up a CCTV on the assy line. Pitch it as quality and safety control: management needs to have assurance that policy is followed and that any process imperfections be spotted before food quality suffers.