BMG (formerly Brown Machine Group)

Mantis Robotic Trim Press Handler

BMG announces the Mantis Robotic Trim Press Handler from NAS Nalle Automation Systems, the industry’s first robotic automated system that reliably handles the flow of parts ejected from any trim press. This compact, intuitive, and configurable system enables full automation of the entire thermoforming process — from resin to palletized product — for medium to high volume production lines using either non-servo continuous flow or servo-driven long eject trim presses.Previously, parts ejected from non-servo trim presses needed to be manually separated and counted, a labor-intensive, error-prone, and inconsistent process that limits the automation of downstream packaging functions. NAS solved this problem with the patent-pending Trim Press Receiver (TPR) which uses a unique separating mechanism to count and contain stacks of product, followed by a raking mechanism to take the product into the receiver for transfer by the robot. The TPR presents the parts to a six-axis robot equipped with product matching End of Arm Tooling that in turn automatically transfers the product to a Shuttle Station, which integrates with downstream packaging functions that may include wrapping, boxing, case packing, sealing, and palletizing.

NextGen Controls

BMG announces NextGen Controls™, an intuitive, easy-to-use HMI (Human-Machine Interface) platform that simplifies operations and reduces training requirements for new employees. The NextGen Controls platform is compatible with most existing servo-based BMG machines and will provide a common look and feel to all BMG brands and products in the future.New employees now universally bring years of smartphone experience, making them immediately prepared to interact with NextGen’s intuitive graphical user interface and multitouch gestures. Clear, detailed graphical representations of the machines are displayed on the 24-inch high-definition widescreen industrial PCs. The operator just needs to point and click on a particular component to bring up a window to set recipes and process parameters.