EOAT Specialists | Automate Any Process

Superior EOAT for any work cell

EOAT Design and Manufacture

The quality of the design and manufacture of the end of arm tooling is the key to a successful robotic work cell implementation.

We place a substantial focus on our EOAT design solutions and our ongoing aim is to create and implement innovative, reliable and robust robotic solutions.

We design and manufacture high performance robotic end effectors and robot gripper systems for automated manufacturing systems and we have the required in-house skills and technical know how to develop first class EOAT for any work cell.

Products and Services

Dynamic robotic EOAT design solutions

Robotic requirements can be widely diverse but Cobots Online have the specialists in place to deliver all of your EOAT requirements. From electric to pneumatic grippers, from vacuum arrays to foam grippers we provide robust solutions for deployment on both industrial and collaborative robots.

Bespoke EOAT
Design Solutions

We specialise in custom designed, robustly engineered and constructed end of arm tooling (EOAT) grippers and end effectors, for a wide range of robotic automation applications.

Assembly Line
Automation Solutions

We offer a wide variety of EOAT solutions to maximise the robotic assembly line automation process. Our solutions are solidly built, easy to maintain and deliver maximum performance.

Industries

Our products are designed to meet the demands of the following industries ..

Automotive

Oil & Gas

Packaging

Pharmaceutical

Food & Beverage

Logistics

What Makes Us Different?

Technical Roots

Our team are EOAT technical experts, having experienced many end of arm tooling challenges first-hand.

Accountability

We don’t outsource, re-sell or re-badge our services. We take full responsibility for each project.

Motivated People

100% of our staff believe they have a career and not a job. Everybody works as a team for the greater good.

Working from your CAD files our engineers;

Design EOATs and pallet boards using Solidworks 3D CAD
Create 3D models of your tooling and components
Manufacture all parts (in-house CNC manufacturing)
Assemble the tooling or pallet boards and fully test them

No ‘internal’ machine downtime. The finished product is ready to fit and programme with minimal downtime leading to a reduction in set up costs, increased machine utilisation and increased profitability.

End of Arm Tooling & Gripper Solutions

End of arm tooling and gripper systems are used to design and build robotic end effector tools, fixturing tools and ergonomic tooling for use on every type of robotic automation equipment.

End of arm tooling can be found in applications such as packaging, palletising, plastic injection moulding, automotive assembly and almost any industry where automated systems and robotic applications are feasible.

Cobots Online specialise in the design and manufacture of bespoke vacuum and mechanical gripping systems to handle components weighing upwards of 750kgs to components as small and fragile as a pharmaceutical vial.

Our end of arm tooling design team are experts in:

Mould Tool Design
and Moulding Processes

End of arm tooling custom plastic injection moulding services. Specialist small batch & production. In-house design.

Transfer Systems
and Fixture
Design

Our transfer system and fixtures design team is dedicated to supporting all of your needs for End of Arm Tooling projects.

Robotic Automation
and robotic
interfaces

We can help your business save time and money and boost employee productivity and energy by reducing time on tasks.

Talk to us about your EOAT project

Call Us or

Email Us

What We offer

Design | Manufacture | Assemble | Test | Handover

Ninety per cent of most automation projects consist of modular items such as transfer systems, robot arms and workstations.

However, the final ten per cent of the project encompasses the interface between the product and the automated system. This ten per cent of the project can create ninety per cent of the headaches.

If the end of arm tooling and work piece pallets don’t correctly fit the end components, the system will not produce the desired productivity gains and associated profits.

Robot End of arm tooling is a critical element in robot automation cells and is the interface between the whole system and the product. If the system doesn’t hold the product safely and securely without damaging the part, then the system won’t work.

Our Expertise

Our expertise can be found in the following areas of industry

Palletising Goods
Bag Grippers
Vacuum Pad EOATs
Fork Style EOAT for open top containers
Carton Clamping EOATs
Machine Tending

Loading & Unloading CNC Machines
Injection Moulding
De-moulding
Insert moulding
Two part moulding with changeover
Transfer and Conveyor Systems

How We Work

EOAT (End of arm tooling) and gripper systems are used to design and build robotic end effector tools, fixturing tools and ergonomic tooling for use on every type of robotic automation equipment.

End of arm tooling can be manufactured from component kits or bespoke EOAT manufactured to suit a specific application.

We focus on the design and manufacture of Bespoke EOAT, this method of manufacture utilizes CAD models detailing tooling and components along with available product data.

Alternatively, we can work alongside your robotics and automation integrator, providing a design and build facility for the bespoke items of the project.

Kit forms are time consuming to build and usually involve the assembly line or manufacturing cell being off line while the tooling is built in situ. They also require the complete kit of parts to be specified in advance and ordered from a selection of third party suppliers prior to the build.

Cobots Online partner with you, the customer to ensure the project objectives are fully understood. This provides a clear roadmap for our engineers to follow ensuring timescales, milestones and installation deadlines are achieved.

Regular communication between you and our engineers provides you with confidence the project is on time or, if required, allows additional resources to be pooled to regain the schedule.

This method of manufacture creates available end of arm tooling to coincide with the arrival of mould tools or production builds and eliminates costly down time while in-situ kit builds are typically produced.

We have in house design, CNC manufacture, 3D printing and testing facilities to ensure the end effectors are proven and ready for immediate use.

EOAT Components

Rotary Units / Tilt Units

These are designed to allow the EOAT to pivot on the end of the robot arm without the need to move the robot itself. This allows components to be precisely placed into packaging containers or transfer systems and provide an extra axis for the robot arm.

Grippers

These are moving fingers or clamps which “grip” specific elements of the workpiece. They are available in many forms and power options to suit the specific application and environment.

Examples include;

Parallel Grippers

As the name suggests, these typically consist of two moving clamps which grip the part by moving parallel to each other. They are available in a wide range of sizes to suit every job. Parallel grippers can be powered by compressed air or electricity.

Angular Grippers

These take many forms and can be used as Sprue Grippers where the jaws of the gripper move in an angular motion like a scissor action. They can also have multiple jaws, for example a 3 jaw angular gripper can be used to pick circular objects. These are available as compressed air or electrically powered grippers.

Expansion Grippers

These are ideally used to hold inserts prior to pacing in a mould tool or to locate the EOAT into a cavity prior to gripping. They can be useful when there are no normal places for a traditional gripper to hold the component.

One finger grippers

Typically used to clamp a component in place, either by wrapping around the edge of the part or to hold the part in place for robotic operations such as drilling/screw insertion etc.

Magnetic Grippers

For handling small parts in ferromagnetic material

Vacuum Grippers

These consist of a vacuum cup and a pipe fitting which allows the cup to be connected to the vacuum generator. Vacuum cups come in a wide range of shapes and sizes, this allows the design engineer to select the correct fitting to acquire the component with minimal force.

Vacuum Grippers are used widely in de-moulding operations where the plastic moulding is transferred from the mould to the next workstation or conveyor. They are usually combined with sprue grippers and snippers to ensure the sprue is handled and disposed of correctly and therefore doesn’t impede the process flow.

Air Nippers / Air Shears

Can be fitted to the end of arm tooling or optionally to a cutting station. Used to trim unwanted sprues or parts from the component prior to its next workstation.

Linear Actuators

Used to add additional axes to End of Arm Tooling for example, they can be fitted to the EOAT to provide a quick side shift within the mould tool envelope whilst the robot arm remains stationary. This can speed up the changeover time and provide additional programming options/functionality for the robot arm.

Frame Profiles

Aluminium extrusion which is used to build the EOAT framework.

Mounting clamps

Angle clamps, cross over clamps, extension clamps used for mounting gripper arms, vacuum cups and grippers to the EOAT.

Frame Connectors

Used to build a finished frame from the aluminium extrusion.

Pneumatic connectors / vacuum fittings

These connect the pneumatic or vacuum supply to the relevant grippers and tools.

Swivel Arms

These offer unlimited positioning of the suction cup, making it easy to adjust the position to find the right spot on the component for it to be handled or held.

Quick Change System

Used at the interface between the end of arm tooling (EOAT) and the robot arm to allow fast changeovers of EOAT from one product to another. These can be manually operated or highly sophisticated automatic tool changers.

Wrist Extensions

Used to add length from the robot arm to the point of placement, used for reaching into deep containers or awkward positions. These are manufactured in a range of standard sizes however custom sizes are also available in short lead times.

Vacuum Generators

Powered by compressed air, the vacuum generator can be fitted close to the suction cups, ideally on the robot arm or EOAT to minimise the piping required and to facilitate ease of maintenance and quick tool changeovers.

Robotic Assembly Line Automation

The requirements for world class manufacturers to continually reduce product cycle times has led to complex requirements.

Fully automated lines require complex automation to process a high volume of parts in the shortest possible times.

On the other hand, small batch sizes are often run on partially automated lines combined with manual workstations.

This is especially true when there is a high variation of product to pass through the line.

We conceptualise, design and build assembly line automation robotic carriers and fixtures to suit your components and assemblies.

Workpiece Pallets / Workpiece Carriers

Transfer systems are widely available from manufactures such as Bosch Rexroth, Versa Move, Elcom etc.

However, it doesn’t matter which robotic automation transfer system you install, without the correct fixture on the workpiece pallet, your line will not run efficiently.

A workpiece pallet or workpiece carrier is used on a transfer system or conveyor system to move the workpiece through the processing stations.

The workpiece pallet can vary in size from a small workpiece load of less than 3kgs to large components weighing in excess of 750kgs.

The workpiece pallet or workpiece carrier is a simple pallet which moves along the transfer system stopping at predetermined points to allow assembly operators or robotic automation to perform operations on the workpiece.

The workpiece carrier on its own is not able to carry the workpiece, it has to be adapted by fitting a workpiece holding fixture to the carrier.

These fixtures can be designed to accommodate a single workpiece or more commonly adapted to carry multiple variants of workpiece.

Our fixtures can be designed to accommodate multiple products, eliminating the need for multiple fixtures and the associated cost.

CAD to Design & Build

With experienced CAD design engineers, we can work from your CAD models to design and build the workpiece carrier even before the actual components have been produced.

This ability to manufacture pre-production workpiece carriers reduces your production set up and lead time and ensures product is ready to run as soon as the plant starts to produce.

Using Soldworks design software and Soldworks visualize, we are able to develop your workpiece carrier from a simple idea to a finished design.

We can also share design ideas and lifelike images via the latest video conference facilities.

We can quickly adapt and view real time images from your smartphone to adapt and modify any aspect through the manufacturing process.

This ability saves you time and money as you don’t need to wait on a visit from our engineers, likewise you don’t need to spend time travelling to sign off on agreed milestones.

Once the initial workpiece carrier has been designed, our manufacturing engineers will machine and build the component fixture and attach this to the workpiece pallet or carrier.

We operate a full CNC machine shop with robotic machine loading and lights out running to deliver components quickly and in a cost effective manner.

Workpiece carriers can be manufactured from a range of materials including solid aluminium, plastic or aluminium profiles and stainless steel.

Where complex shapes are involved, we use additive manufacturing to create strong and lightweight workpiece fixtures.

The workpiece carrier might also be fitted with a range of grippers and clamps depending upon the type of assembly operation required on the system.

Design engineers work alongside production engineers to build and test the prototype before you can sign off the finished product.

Complete manufacture takes place quickly and all parts are traceable for quick replacement or modification.

Workpiece Pallets can be re-furbished at the end of the product life and new workpiece carriers designed and built to fit onto the existing pallets.

Superior EOAT for any work cell