Fast development cycle for the design of industrial grippers

Abstract

Recent trends, such as Supply Chain agility, just in time delivery, and mass customization of products, are pushing automated production processes in Industry 4.0 towards increasing flexibility. Although the entire set of devices is already on the market and can be selected according to the needs, the element that regularly has to be redesigned is the robotic end effector, mainly a gripper. Therefore, we established a Fast Development Cycle to accelerate the design and test process of new industrial grasping devices. The cycle consists of the three main steps: Build, Test, and Learn. The most fundamental aspect of the methodology is to decompose a gripper idea into its essential uncoupled constituents and convert it into a gripper pretotype that is solely oriented to validate its basic principles. This procedure ensures a quick initial building phase and allows to enter testing early. Test results are used to evaluate the initial idea, to enhance knowledge and to create the input for the next turn of the cycle. During each turn the design evolves further while reducing uncertainties. Contrary to traditional product development, this method enables to test the feasibility of a device in the earliest possible stage with the least possible amount of time and money. The single steps of the methodology are illustrated in this paper in detail based on real cases from industry. The successful development of industrial grippers from these real cases through the Fast Development Cycle demonstrates its applicability. Instead of optimizing complex systems, the methodology generates simple solutions with a high potential for cost savings in the design and production process of the devices themselves and during their operation in automated production processes in several industries. The methodology applies regardless of the underlying physical principles and encounters the use of TRLs as KPIs to measure technology maturity.