Edgewater Automation, with headquarters in St. Joseph, has been selected as one of 20 nominees from over 230 exhibiting companies as a “New Product of the Year” finalist by The ASSEMBLY Show 2022 in the Assembly Machines & Systems category. Edgewater designs and builds custom automation solutions for a wide scope of applications and industries.
For this project, bathroom fixture manufacturer Lyons Industries of Dowagiac faced a big challenge: employees were required to push, pull and lift heavy objects throughout a 10-hour shift, taking a heavy toll on the workforce and the company’s productivity. Lyons turned to Edgewater for help.
Edgewater’s first task was to develop a way to move 150-pound carts through various processing areas. Edgewater built an automated conveyance system to handle the job. Next, Edgewater automated the order-building process. The system integrated an MiR mobile robot with a custom four-corner, strut-framed lifting machine with PLC and touchscreen HMI.
The system uses mapping and vision to move the boxed product from the packaging area to the correct pallet, where a lift mechanism senses and stacks the boxes at the correct height.
“Our team strives to provide world class equipment for our customers. We couldn’t be prouder of the creativity and effort that our entire Edgewater team puts in every day. Being nominated for a prestigious award such as this is a direct reflection of our culture. We’re proud to share this honor with Lyons Industries, whose vision to introduce change through automation and new technology shows how much they care about their team members and customers. Through a collaborative design process, this new manufacturing technology will help bring many benefits to their everyday business,” said Edgewater managing director Tim Tate.
Lyons Industries CEO Lance Lyons said, “Our workforce continues to shrink. It’s very important to make the jobs easier for our people. The work is too hard. Edgewater helped us find a safer way to burn fewer calories and get more product to our customers.”
The ASSEMBLY awards are held to draw attention to the breadth and quality of new technologies on display at the 10th annual Assembly Show, being held at the Donald A. Stevens Convention Center in Rosemont, Illinois, October 25-27, 2022. More than 230 exhibitors will display the latest products and services at the Show. Attendees of the Show will vote in booth #2023 during exhibit hours, with the winner being announced October 27th at 9:30 a.m.
The Edgewater Automation team will have two new custom designed systems built specifically for demo at The Assembly Show 2022:
• A Fanuc SCARA display will highlight the working envelope and speed of a typical SCARA pick and place application. It will also feature two area scanners integrated to demonstrate a simple safe guarded zone that surrounds the automation cell.
• A Demo3DVR (an interactive VR CAD viewer) and Apple AR Kit to create virtual environments to help not only visualize an assembly but to also interact with it.
In addition, Edgewater will demo two machines it premiered at Automate Show 2022:
• A FANUC CRX collaborative robot with FANUC iRVision 3D and 3DA Area Sensor, which deploys custom golf balls while assembling the Edgewater name in custom cut blocks.
• The second is a Stein 300E Palletized Conveyor with SOFTMOVE technology, featuring a FANUC SR-31A SCARA Robot, and a custom pneumatic pick and place station working together to play the classic wooden peg game (seen at Cracker Barrel restaurants) with (spoiler alert) the machine winning every time.
Edgewater recently marked its 20th anniversary with several notable accomplishments:
• Five locations with 286,500 square feet of floor space
• 250+ employees, including apps engineers, designers, fabricators, machinists, assembly technicians, project managers, and supporting staff • Machines in 48 states, 19 countries, and 6 continents
• $500 million in equipment shipped
