TRUMPF Ends the Manual Sorting Bottleneck with the SortMaster Station and Vision
The biggest bottleneck in a modern sheet metal shop isn't usually the laser -- it's often the person standing behind it. While lasers have become incredibly fast, the grueling task of manually separating intricate parts from scrap metal hasn't changed much in decades.
After automated sorting with the SortMaster Station and SortMaster Vision from TRUMPF, an employee just has to remove the finished stacks of parts. (Source: TRUMPF)
TRUMPF is looking to end that with the introduction of the SortMaster Station and SortMaster Vision, a duo designed to handle the heavy lifting without the headache of complex programming.
What makes this system a departure from traditional automation is how it decouples the workflow.
Typically, a machine stops or slows down while parts are being sorted. With this new setup, the laser keeps cutting while the SortMaster Station takes over the dirty work of "shaking" parts free from the scrap skeleton. It doesn't matter if the metal is an inch thick or if the geometry is a jagged nightmare of points and curves; the station simply clears the deck.
The new SortMaster Station and SortMaster Vision solutions from TRUMPF enable fully automatic sorting without programming. (Source: TRUMPF)
The real "brain" of the operation, however, is the SortMaster Vision. Developed in partnership with the AI experts at Intrinsic, this robot doesn't need a human to tell it where to move. Using AI-assisted cameras, it looks at the pile of separated parts, recognizes them instantly, and calculates its own path to pick and palletize them.
In the past, programming a robot for a single, custom part took so long that most manufacturers just gave up and did it by hand. Now, the system handles even a "batch size of one" with zero manual coding.
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