ROBOTIC CELLS FOR THE GOLDSMITH SECTOR
Jewelry is a product that never loses appeal in the market, both for its value as a luxury good and as an investment, and as a source of gratification. The prospects for the future, even if to be remodeled compared to what was the past, are therefore there, considering the important role that the luxury sector, and therefore also the goldsmith sector, has made in the Made in Italy industry.
The gold sector in Italy
In Italy there are more than 14.000 active jewellerys, but in the last decade this sector lost a considerable slice of its employability.
Thinking of the period immediately following the post-lockdown reopening, May 2020, Italian jewelers, like many other entrepreneurs, found themselves facing a very complex challenge, without however losing the will to face it.
In the goldsmith world getting ahead of times has always been crucial. Here lies today’s great challenge: anticipating them in a totally revolutionized scenario, while preserving centuries of artisanal work.
The road that the gold sector must take in order to compensate future and current contractures is undoubtedly the one that aims to the optimization of production times and the sophistication of technological tools capable of capable of performing increasingly complex processes, all without sacrificing design.
Here is immediately understood the value that robotic cells can have in goldsmithing.
Some phases of the production processes involved in the realization of jewels and precious artifacts can be perfectly performed by different types of robots, like anthropomorphic robots for the casting and sampling phases, cleaning, assembly, etc.
Another crucial step in the realization of jewelry is that of quality control, which today can be carried out with the help of sophisticated artificial intelligence technologies related to vision systems integrated into special cells.
Digital artisans
We usually think of robots as bulky tools used to manipulate large, heavy objects. This is indeed the case for some of them, but there are also compact models, capable of performing high-precision machining even on very small objects.
This is the case of goldsmithing, jewellery and costume jewellery. Here they can replace the operator in those repetitive and alienating tasks that are more prone to attention lapses and therefore a large margin for human error.
Moreover, considering the level of quality that an Italian jewel has to reach, industrial robots can work 24 consecutive hours without any drop in productivity or attention.
The tasks of robotic cells in the jewellery sector
But what are the tasks that can be performed by industrial robots in the jewellery sector?
- Sorting: identifying and sorting objects(often following tumbling) by format, shape, size etc. with the support of a vision system;
- Laser welding jewellery handling;
- Pick & place in various stages of the line;
- Embedding;
- High precision laser welding of jewelry;
- Quality control;
- Sampling.
Robotic cells for goldsmithing
The goldsmithing and the fashion world go hand in hand, in fact, both are the material expression of trends that take shape in ever new collections. So it’s very clear, that company productivity must be pushed to the maximum, while also managing peak times.
In this regard, robotic cells are the perfect tool, because one of their most important features - in addition to ease of management - is their "adaptability": format or production type changes are not a problem for our automations. They do not require major modifications.
Often in our industrial automations, for example, it is sufficient to change the grippers of the robots, their programs and few other components of the machinery. In this case, we talk about easy reversibility, and this explains the name of our T-Flexicell robotic cells.
The flexibility of robotic solutions is also useful for dealing with fluctuating production flow patterns. If the company finds itself having to diversify its production, for example, it will have the opportunity to convert the robotic cell to new tasks.
The advantages of an industrial robot
A robotic cell brings benefits to almost any production flow. Many companies that have installed one of our cells have seen a rapid return on investment, even within the first year.
The constant working of the robot and the absence of a mandatory supervision by the operator are two factors that help to understand the economic benefit that one or more robotic cells can bring to a goldsmith company.
A robotic cell for manipulation, i.e. the one most used in goldsmithing and jewelry, is:
- Flexible
- Easy to use
- Reversible
- Self-sufficient
Finally, our robotic cells can also be equipped with a data storage and management system that allows to generate in real time, during the processing phases, a database with information of particular interest for the company..
Therefore, not only increased and constant productivity, but also greater control and possibility to improve the creation flow of the jewel or semi-finished product.
