Fully automated machining centres and parts cleaning. Combatting personnel shortages with robots
Yaskawa robots are automating machining centres, including the connected parts cleaning systems, at a leading supplier of products and solutions for sanitary, heating and cooling systems in Landau/Palatinate. The robotics showcase project is the perfect solution for companies suffering from staff shortages, and offers a number of other advantages.
Watts Industries Deutschland GmbH is the German subsidiary of Watts Water Technologies, a global company founded in the United States that generated sales of around two billion US dollars in 2022 with more than 4,500 employees worldwide. More than 170 attractive jobs are located in Landau in der Pfalz. Here the company produces primarily innovative products for water-carrying heating and air conditioning systems.
What stands out during the site visit is the high vertical range of manufacture, and production is correspondingly well equipped. Processing machines of all kinds work in shifts, including several identical machining centres from Alzmetall that perform the machining of pipes of different lengths. These subsequently serve as distribution systems for underfloor heating.
For more than ten years, semi-skilled employees were tasked with the loading and unloading of these machining centres in multiple machine operation. Andreas Becker, Industrial Engineer at Watts Industries, explains why the company urgently needed to invest in the automation of these machines: “Here at the site we are suffering from a massive shortage of personnel. To ensure the continuous operation of the machines in shift operation, the only option was to invest in robots. This step opened up the possibility of qualifying the freed-up employees on the machines for higher-level tasks, relieving them of the daily contact with cooling lubricants that loading and unloading inevitably entails.”