By Fiona Vernon
With technology developing so rapidly over the past century, assembly lines have become an effective and common method of manufacturing complex products, like vehicles, appliances, and other electronics from Spokane, Washington, to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They involve human hands, robotics, or machines that keep parts moving along a conveyor belt in a specific and organized manner. Each worker or machine usually performs a precise, specific action with the goal of having each component travel the least distance possible while building a larger product. A significant part of Berran Industrial Group’s business are its custom automation and assembly machines. Paul Zuzik, the vice president of the Engineering Group, gives an example of an assembly system for a valve used in the food and drink industry that exemplifies their superior products. The 15-year-old design for this particular machine has been in operation for over 35 million cycles and still uses most of the original cylinders, drives, and sensors. Mr. Zuzik stresses that Berran isn’t locked into a specific market or process. They understand and are grounded in the basics of engineering and simply apply their knowledge of mechanisms systems and controls to whatever process needs to be automated, and they recently produced a one-of-a-kind connector assembly machine. An interesting part of special custom machinery are the controls and programming. It’s very common for the PLC programming to be one-of-a-kind, so Berran is constantly operating in a program development mode for any business from San Diego, California, to Atlanta, Georgia. Course quality and minimizing the impact of quality problems is extremely important, so Berran is very active in quality control fixturing, as well as the inclusion of quality checks in the process of many of its machines.
Part of the appeal in custom assembly and automation machines are that they allow companies to create large numbers of identical parts that are interchangeable. This makes part production, repair, and replacement more cost-effective for everyone, from consumer to manufacturer. For example, by the end of World War II, assembly lines helped factories produce B-17 bombers at the rate of one every 63 minutes, and that was without the modern technology of custom automation machines. Anyone from Atlanta to Philadelphia can imagine the possibilities of efficiency with custom assembly machines specifically for their process. Through their extensive work with assembly systems for the food and automotive industries, Berran Industrial Group realizes how devastating quality problems can be, so their quality control fixturing involves the inclusion of inspections in the process of many of its machines. It’s very common to include cameras and laser sensors to make measurements and detect presence, size, and quality of components after processing. Berran uses these various quality checks, based on recipes where applicable, to guarantee that a part is rejected to a defect location or not allowed to be removed without passing quality checks. It’s becoming more common to notify and deliver data from the machine into customer’s computer systems for analysis from the appropriate person. The aforementioned valve in the assembly system for the food industry that was designed over 15 years ago maintains its level of performance because of its robust design, strength, and rigidity of not only the frames, but all the various bracketry and mounting plates used to keep everything functioning in exactly the manner in which they are intended.
Since it’s very common for the PLC programming to be unique to each piece of special custom machinery, Berran Industrial Group goes to great lengths to use HMI/operator interfaces with the PLC programming for diagnostics, as well as basic operation. There is a general groundswell of customers who claim that they are simply not able to find the technical skills in their maintenance and repair departments necessary for the more sophisticated machinery that’s required for them to be competitive in today’s international markets. When necessary, Berran can also provide diagnostics for any maintenance team from San Diego to Spokane to rapidly and accurately determine what might be malfunctioning on their machine. An example is their recently developed connector assembly machine which inserts right angle electrical contacts directly into mold inserts that are placed into the mold for the manufacture of a plastic receptacle. Previously, the tedious job of inserting connectors and the inspection of the final part was done manually. The rendering of the machine is without the guarding and enclosures of the actual machine. The machine includes a sophisticated camera system that QC checks numerous parameters of each insertion position both prior to and after molding to prevent issues. Each special custom machine that Berran creates combines every segment of knowledge concerning quality control fixturing and PLC programming that they have acquired from each previous design so that they always growing.
Many companies who didn’t incorporate assembly line technology into their procedures were soon out of business. The constant evolution of custom assembly and automation machines is necessary to increase production in a cost-effective and competitive manner from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to San Diego, California. Berran Industrial Group, Inc.’s engineers are faced with creating special custom machinery to solve customer issues daily and live up to every challenge with their custom-created PLC programming and quality control fixturing for each unique machine. Their innovative designs, from connector assembly machines to assembly systems for the food and automotive industry, are changing how companies from Spokane, Washington, to Atlanta, Georgia, operate, making every move measured and efficient.
Berran Industrial Group, Inc.
570 Wolf Ledges Pkwy
Akron, Ohio 44311
330.253.5800
berranindustrialgroup.com/