Hundreds more respiratory protection masks every day thanks to ABB robot

The challenge

The company needed to quickly boost production of its protective respiratory face masks to meet a sudden rush of demand from Sweden and the rest of the world.

The solution

Tiki Safety installed an ABB IRB 2600 compact robot that places and picks masks in and out of a machine that molds a sealing rubber strip around the respirator. Automation with the highly reliable IRB 2600 robot has made production at Tiki Safety ten times faster, improved the quality of the life-saving masks and created a better environment for employees who are excited to work with the robot.

The application

Pick and place masks between two sections of a production line.

There are busy days at Tiki Safety in Bro outside Stockholm. Demand for the company’s respiratory protection has grown exponentially both in Sweden and globally. In order to meet the high demand, production was streamlined, and the solution became an ABB robot.

“Thanks to the ABB-robot, we now have a cycle time that is ten times as fast. This enables us to meet our orders and help hospitals in Sweden and around the world to get products as quickly as possible, says Mikael Klockseth, CEO tiki safety.

Tiki is one of the most advanced and at the same time most easy to use respirators on the market, a unique overpressure mask with a small fan at the top. But even though the respirator is world class, the machinery of manufacturing did not keep as high a standard. In order to manage Tiki Safety to increase their production rate, 3Button Group together with ABB developed a tailor-made solution: a new production cell where an ABB robot, IRB 2600, picks masks in and out of a machine that mold the sealing rubber strip that is placed around the respirator.

“Thanks to cooperation with 3Button Group and ABB, we got a turnkey solution in record time. It works great. Already the day after commissioning, we were up and running and making masks at a rate quite different from the one we had in the past, says Mikael Klockseth.

RobotStudio – an enabler (for development)

The phase of production that had been modernised took six minutes earlier. Now it doesn’t take more than 40 seconds. And faster it will be. “In a week or so, we hope to be down to 20 seconds. It’s just amazing! In addition, no special competence is required to work with the new line, and less needlework than before provides better quality of the product, says Mikael Klockseth.

RobotStudio has been an important key to the fast and successful robot delivery. ABB:s programming- and robot simulation software can create, simulate and test a complete robot installation in a virtual 3D environment. When tool design and programming of Tiki Safety’s new robot cell was added to RobotStudio, everyone could quickly see new opportunities and make decisions.

“In RobotStudio we immediately saw that there was more time for the robot to do other things in the cell. Therefore, we will introduce our test station in the same cell, so that the robot tests the masks while it manufactures and molds the plastic parts. It saves us an enormous amount of time if we don’t have to test manually, says Mikael Klockseth.

Improved working environment

Increased production capacity, higher quality and more parts in the same cell. The replacement of old messy machines with a modern robot brings many advantages. It has also been a boost for the working environment at Tiki Safety.

“The ABB robot has solved much of the machine trouble we had before. Thanks to the robot, production works without problems, and the staff is much better able to manufacture the product now. They think it’s fun to work with new, cool machines!

Tiki Safety is very pleased with the new ABB robot. Now the company is better equipped to meet the high demand for respiratory protection, and according to Mikael Klockseth, the next step is already being thought about.

“Since the technology has proven to work so well, we have talked about buying another ABB robot. Then we could double production.”