Overview & Profile
Our customer is a manufacturer specializing in precision-engineered metal components, including shims, washers, and discs made from precious metals. With a diverse product mix of thousands of part variations and batch sizes ranging from just a few pieces to over 100,000, maintaining consistent quality and efficient production is critical to their operations.
Check out the full video below to see the challenge and solution in action!
Challenges
Prior to automation, this manufacturer faced several operational and technical challenges that limited efficiency and consistency:
- Extremely small part size with tight tolerances, making handling, inspection, and accurate counting inherently difficult
- Manual counting methods relying on weight, leading to potential inaccuracies
- Difficulty inspecting extremely small, tight-tolerance parts during production
- High labor involvement in sorting, counting, and packaging
- Inconsistent quality detection, with defects not always identified in real time
- Material-specific complications, including reflective surfaces and static interference
- Wide product variation, requiring a solution flexible enough to handle thousands of SKUs
Situation
To support continued growth and improve process reliability, the manufacturer needed an automated solution capable of accurately sorting, inspecting, and counting parts—while keeping pace with production. The goal was to replace manual processes with a high-speed, repeatable system that could ensure both quality and efficiency across varying batch sizes.
Solution
Sure Controls delivered a fully integrated, turn-key automation cell designed to streamline the entire post-production process—from bulk part handling to final sorting and counting.
The system includes:
- Bulk part loading with automated feeder systems
- High-speed SCARA robotics for precise part handling
- Advanced vision inspection to verify concentricity, inner diameter (ID), and outer diameter (OD)
- Rotary dial indexing for efficient inspection flow
- Automated sorting into good and reject bins
- Barcode-driven recipe selection for flexible part changeover
Engineered to operate at cycle times of ≤0.75 seconds per part, the solution was built to match or exceed production rates while maintaining high inspection accuracy. Additional considerations—such as anti-static measures and specialized lighting for reflective materials—ensured consistent performance in a challenging application environment.
Results
1. Increased Accuracy & Quality Assurance
Automated vision inspection provides consistent, repeatable validation of critical dimensions, eliminating the variability of manual inspection. The system achieves a 98% success rate in accurately distinguishing good parts from rejects, improving overall product quality and confidence.
2. Reliable, High-Speed Throughput
With sub-second cycle times, the automation cell keeps pace with production demands across a wide range of batch sizes. Continuous operation with minimal operator intervention allows for extended run times and improved manufacturing efficiency.
3. Reduced Labor Dependency
By automating sorting, inspection, counting, and binning, Lucas Milhaupt significantly reduces manual handling requirements. Operators can now focus on higher-value tasks, while the system manages repetitive and precision-driven processes.
4. Scalable & Flexible Production
The recipe-driven system supports multiple part types, enabling quick changeovers and adaptability across thousands of SKUs. This flexibility ensures the solution can grow alongside production needs.
5. Improved Process Visibility
Integrated inspection data and reporting provide greater insight into part quality, enabling faster identification of upstream manufacturing issues and more informed decision-making.
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Team Feedback:
“We made extreme complexity simple to operate”
-Mat C., Lead Robotic Engineer
“We take the kinds of automation projects you’ve written off—and make them real, reliable, and usable.”
-Logan Krueger, Robotic Sales Engineer