Automating the impossible: Turning Performance

As early as the 1980s, master moldmaker Len Graham has been trying to figure out how to automate moldmaking. His brainchild, the “megacell” in the medical containers and closures division of Rexam Mold Manufacturing, Buffalo Grove, Ill., is a proving ground for new automation techniques in an industry previously considered impossible to automate.

Berry Plastics Corp., Evansville, Ind., purchased Rexam in 2014, but Graham’s production line continues to operate, with Graham serving as business unit leader. By using a robotic arm on a track to move parts from one section of the process to another and a standardized, palletized tooling ball to provide a fixed reference point for the CAD/CAM software controlling each machine, he’s already accomplished what others told him was impossible … and he’s not done yet.

All images courtesy Alan Rooks

The robot and part-management carousels on rail No. 1 of Rexam’s manufacturing megacell.

CTE: How did you come up with the idea to automate moldmaking?

Graham: I’ve had these ideas rolling around in my head since the ’80s. People used to call me a lunatic, telling me it’s impossible to automate moldmaking because it’s a discipline that takes 20 years to get any good at. But from the time I was 16 years old, I realized that even though every cavity is different, at the end of the day, they’re either round or square. You’re either grinding it one way or another. Why can’t a robot do that?

CTE: What is the principle behind the tooling ball?

Graham: Every tooling ball is exactly 2¹/₂” from the base to the centerline of the ball. That way, all you have to do is have the computer measure the distance between the center of the ball and the surface of the part, and you know exactly how much you have to grind at any given point. The measurements aren’t relative to the part; they ‘re relative to the constant location of the centerline.