Gone are the days when designers had to design expensive handling systems over a protracted period themselves: With Festo's plug and work, the shrewd customer is reaching for fully pre-assembled handling axes with grippers or vacuum suction units which can be integrated into an assembly system with a minimum of effort.

Many automobile manufacturers and suppliers, food and packag-ing producers or companies in the electronics industry use these complete handling systems from Festo. In the same way as the plug and play principle has ensured that Internet technology is available to every household, with plug and work, Festo offers pre-assembled handling axes with grippers or vacuum suction units which can be integrated into complete assembly systems with a minimum of effort - adapted to the individual needs of the customer and all from a single source.

Plug and work facts

Cost-benefit effect: Machine and system manufacturers can save almost 10% of the costs for development and design, up to 12.5% of installation costs and up to 10% of servicing and maintenance costs compared with handling systems which they develop and design themselves.

Creative spaces in development: Gripping, jointing, rotating and precise positioning with the Festo handling module. A range of 300 co-ordinated components, which can be freely combined with one another, is available. The Festo HMP and HMPL handling axes provide a basic framework for pick and place units. They can be used to combine any number of handling technology components - from rotary drives to slide units and grippers - to create assembly units which are tailored to customers' needs.

Can robots be replaced?

The more complex the assembly, the easier the handling design must be for cost-effective manufacturing - an apparent contradiction, but the Festo handling module proves the opposite thereby highlighting the disadvantages of robots. Thanks to the easy, rapid configuration of multi-functional systems, pneumatics are conquering the traditional areas of application of conventional robots.

By combining individual products from Festo's range of handling modules, the components have proven themselves to be an unbeatable unit - seamlessly combined from individual components and sub-systems. They can be customised to match speed and precision to conversion, palletising or assembly functions. Anyone who thinks that conventional robots are irreplaceable should be told about the plug and work alternative from Festo.

(Festo Controls Private Limited, Bangalore. Tel: 080-22894100. Fax: 91-80-27832058, 27833362.E-mail: info_in@festo.com)