Single Cup Coffee Maker Brews Top-Shelf Assembly with a Bright Machines Microfactory
Household Appliances
A global leader in single cup coffee makers was struggling to maintain enough operators to meet demand for its popular consumer product. The company deployed a Bright Machines Microfactory to automate the assembly of two critical, error-prone components.
The problem
Facing rising demand for its popular single cup coffee maker, the company had a difficult time maintaining a workforce with enough operators to assemble the number of units needed. These entirely manual assembly processes (screwing and pick-and-place) required 5 human operators per each station.
In addition to the labor shortage issue was a critical product quality issue. The human operators assigned to pick-and-place struggled to properly align two important components. When the two parts weren’t properly aligned, it would cause damage to one of the parts resulting in water leakage when the appliance is in use. As a result, the company was producing a relatively low yield of just 60% – far from maximum capacity.
With demand for its products growing rapidly, the company urgently needed an assembly automation solution that would both remove the need for additional manual labor and improve product quality.
The solution
The company selected a Bright Machines Microfactory to automate the screwing and pick-and-place tasks in the assembly of their single-cup coffee maker. A flexible and cost-effective automation solution, the microfactory seamlessly allows both precision screw-driving and pick-and-place to be performed to support the two different components of the coffee maker – those most prone to human error.
The results
Not only has the microfactory significantly reduced the number of human operators required for product assembly, satisfying the original project objective, but it has also solved the critical quality issue. Where the human operators previously struggled to align two critical component parts, the microfactory – aided by advanced computer vision – is able to achieve precise and accurate positioning resulting in no more damaged parts – a yield improvement from 60% to 98%. The microfactory has delivered a stable manufacturing process with consistent high-quality results including:
- Increase in yield from 60% to 98%
- 50% increase of units produced per hour
- 90% reduction in human operators required
For this global household brand, Bright Machines has been critical to their ability to bring more of their popular single cup coffee maker into kitchens around the world.
For more information, check out:
- Product page: Bright Machines Microfactories
- Whitepaper: How to Equip your Factory to Respond to Forecast Deviations
- Video: Microfactories: Explained
- Video library: More Bright Machines Videos
- Webinar: Automating Automation: How Software Will Drive the Next Manufacturing Revolution
- Blog: Got Back-End Blues?
- Blog: Instant Factories
Contact us to find out how Bright Machines Microfactories can dramatically improve product quality and yield in your factory.