David Health Oy is a Finnish company, specialized in exercise equipment for musculoskeletal healthcare. The founder of the company – Mr. Arno Parviainen – was not scared of numerous existing competitors in business. On the contrary, the company name David was chosen to describe the attitude to fight against all the Goliaths out there. Now the focus of the business is manufacturing and selling high-tech healthcare devices utilizing automation. Their business is global. The same out-of-the-box attitude is still there, including development of production technology. This has resulted into effective in use of their machining centers. An example of this is their investment in robotic loading.
Towards an electrical solution
One Haas VF-4 vertical machine center is served by a machine tending cell with KUKA robot. The magnetic gripper of the robot can easily handle various workpieces, and the same flexibility was the goal also in fixturing. The production development team of David Health contacted OK-VISE knowing that we supply hydraulic clamping components. After a couple of discussions, it was decided that they prefer taking in use the first generation electrical ELVA actuators instead. OK-VISE designed and delivered turn-key electrical fixturing solution that can clamp 3 various workpieces with no setup change needed in between the workpieces; this makes small-batch production fluent and easy. The installation of the fixture and connection to the robot was easily done by a local electrician in 2021.
With improvements to greater forces
After the first year of use some improvements where made: second generation ELVA modules with 15 kN clamping force where taken in use, and some protection against chips were implemented.
The customer is satisfied with their pioneering implementation. In their opinion ELVA implementation is easier and simpler compared to hydraulic solutions. Now they consider that their robotic tending application is profitable even in rather low volumes. This means that David Health Oy keeps on challenging all the competition with their know-how and smart technical choices.
