High design standards and engineering skills are inextricably linked at Albrecht Jung. Founded in 1912 and still family-owned today, the company is a manufacturer of classic electrical installations and intelligent building technology with an extensive portfolio of switches, sockets, dimmers, monitors and control systems. These can be found in Berlin's Federal Chancellery and Munich's Allianz Arena as well as in private and commercial buildings all over the world.

Due to the increasing demands of the market, Jung is striving to optimize its entire value chain in such a way that all the activities involved are coordinated in the best possible way. "We have been aligning our production with lean principles for 15 years," explains Production Manager Mario Schäfer during a tour of the factory hall at the company's second site in Lünen, where more than 50 flow production islands are located. "We have a dedicated team that works intensively on optimization options. We are always on the lookout for the latest manufacturing processes in order to keep our production as waste-free as possible and to be able to manufacture small batch sizes flexibly." In addition to the modern production facility, the Lünen branch also houses the logistics center on the 25,000 m² company premises.

In order to avoid having to walk the path to HRC and Industry 4.0 alone, Jung took part in the 'Manuserv' research project as one of several pilot users. "The aim of the program was to use software to clarify whether partial automation of production is even advisable for us - and if so, at which points in the production line," says Schäfer. The mechanical engineering graduate continues: "After a computer simulation, we purchased our first robot - a UR5 from Universal Robots with a payload of 5 kg - from Dahl Automation, tested it in trial operation and then implemented it on a production island. That was five years ago."

Jung paid particular attention to the flow principle: humans and cobots should form a harmonious collaborative unit whose activities are precisely coordinated. To prevent any possible fears of job losses from arising in the first place, the works council and workforce were on board with the development of the automation solution from the outset - right down to the shift worker who today assembles 'smart radios' for wall installation together with the robot arm at one of the assembly line workstations. To do this, she places a fully assembled power supply unit in a holder and starts the UR5, which Jung implemented in 2013 as the first of its UR robots, by pressing a release button.

The cobots are also used at Jung as stand-alone devices - for example for packaging and labeling.

© Universal Robots

The robot sets itself in motion, picks up the power supply unit with its two-finger gripper and places it in a laser chamber, where it is lasered on the front and back. The cobot then removes the part and places it in a second holder. During the laser process, the operator folds up shipping boxes, cleans fully assembled parts with a cloth, packs them into the boxes and assembles a new power supply unit at the same time.

"The advantages of the collaborative robot arm became clear very quickly in practice," explains Schäfer: "It is easy to operate and always carries out the programmed work steps with the same repeat accuracy. It also takes up very little space. These were decisive arguments for us to continue investing in HRC."

And so today, a few meters away from her colleague, another worker is assembling loudspeakers for digital radios. She is assisted by a UR3 robot, which is equipped with a screwdriver and can handle a load of 3 kg. At her start signal, the robot grabs two screws from a separator and attaches a pre-inserted circuit board in a plastic housing. It then screws speakers onto a plastic grid.

The worker places the parts in front of the robot, then removes them again and makes sure there is a sufficient supply of screws. While the UR3 joins the parts together with high precision, she adds further components. "I used to have to fasten the screws by hand," says the woman, adding: "It was often a fiddly job because the screws are quite small - sometimes I slipped. Thanks to the UR3, this work has now become safer for me. I also save valuable time per work step - and can therefore fit a lot more parts."

Flexible use, individually configurable

Carsten Meise demonstrates one floor higher that the cobots not only cooperate perfectly with humans, but also with each other. There, the Head of Fixture Construction and Maintenance and skilled worker Daniel Wagener are preparing two robot arms for use. They are positioned next to each other on a production island and process several housing parts including a circuit board. Once the first robot has assembled three components by snapping them together, it transfers the part to the second robot. The latter places it in a laser chamber, then removes and inspects it and sets it down. "When we also integrate these two cobots into our production line, a total of eight robots from Universal Robots will be doing their work in our production," explains Meise. In most applications, man and machine work together.