At the beginning of the process robot 1, a FANUC Robotics M-900iA, dips a mould into the paper slurry. After a short period of time the mould, weighing 250Kgs at this stage, is removed and a vacuum applied to the top surface of the pallet to remove water.
After the first vacuum operation, the robot rotates the pallet and delivers it to a static vacuum device which extracts water from the other side of the mould. The pallet is then transferred to robot 2, a FANUC Robotics M-2000iB, which applies its vacuum gripper to the pallet while robot 1 ejects it from its gripper. When robot 2 signals it has made a vacuum, robot 1 departs the transfer area and continues with another dip operation.
Robot 2 at this point loads the pallet into one of six drying ovens. The FANUC Robotics controller manages the sequence for all six- ovens, including door operation and heat blow, allowing it to instruct the robot to unload the correct oven and place a finished pallet onto an output conveyor.