RNA Automation
Encyclopedia
RNA Automation, a member of Rhein-Nadel Automation, was established in Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

 UK in 1986, and has progressed into becoming the major supplier of parts handling equipment in the UK. The company operates in the area of specialised automation
Automation
Automation is the use of control systems and information technologies to reduce the need for human work in the production of goods and services. In the scope of industrialization, automation is a step beyond mechanization...

 engineering
Engineering
Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...

, providing automatic parts handling equipment for high volume production in the cosmetics
Cosmetics
Cosmetics are substances used to enhance the appearance or odor of the human body. Cosmetics include skin-care creams, lotions, powders, perfumes, lipsticks, fingernail and toe nail polish, eye and facial makeup, towelettes, permanent waves, colored contact lenses, hair colors, hair sprays and...

, pharmaceutical, electronics
Electronics
Electronics is the branch of science, engineering and technology that deals with electrical circuits involving active electrical components such as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes and integrated circuits, and associated passive interconnection technologies...

, food and metal working industries, with seven manufacturing facilities across Europe and North America and a network of sales and service outlets across the globe.

Company history

Founded in 1972, Rhein-Nadel Automation is the market leader throughout Europe and operates worldwide in parts handling technology. Rhein-Nadel Automation is a member of the Rheinnadel Group, which has been based since 1898 in the town of Aachen
Aachen
Aachen has historically been a spa town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Aachen was a favoured residence of Charlemagne, and the place of coronation of the Kings of Germany. Geographically, Aachen is the westernmost town of Germany, located along its borders with Belgium and the Netherlands, ...

, Germany. Rhein-Nadel Automation have four manufacturing sites in Germany and individual manufacturing plants in the UK, Spain and Switzerland, together with a world-wide, decentralised distribution and service network with 28 subsidiaries.

Time line

1968 The department of the needle factory, so far only responsible for the internal construction of operating material and machines, trades under the name Rheinnadel Maschinenbau and begins working for external customers.

1972 Rheinnadel Maschinenbau now also uses the firm name Rhein-Nadel Automation GmbH and concentrates exclusively on the area of Feeding Technology.

1980-1989 Rhein-Nadel Automation expands. The permanent establishment in Ergolding and the subsidiaries in Switzerland and Great Britain are founded.

1990-1999 Rhein-Nadel Automation continues to grow. The Spanish company Vibrant S.A. is purchased.

2000 With RNA Automated Systems Inc., the first subsidiary outside of Europe takes up its commercial activities in Canada.

2004 The Rheinnadel Group concentrates its activities on the area of Automation. RNA broadens its range with the components and continues to extend its development capacities.

RNA automation specialise in automated feeder and specialist handling systems offering vibratory bowl feeders, Linear Feeders, Centrifugal Feeders and Step Feeder systems. RNA also supply a range of specialist handling equipment including Vision Guided Robots, Tablet Inspection, Vision Inspection, Tray Loading and Bottle Handling.

Technology

RNA supplies a range of vibratory bowl feeder
Bowl feeder
Vibratory bowl feeders are the most common devices used to feed individual components in Industrial Assembly Automation Applications. Vibratory feeders are self-contained systems, comprising a specially tooled bowl feeder that orients the parts, a vibrating drive unit, upon which the bowl feeder is...

 http://www.rnaautomation.com/, centrifugal feeders, linear and conveyor feed systems, and hopper elevator systems in different formates. RNA bowl tops and drive unitsis designed to work in harmony alongside each other and handle components from all areas of industry, providing the widest possible range of shapes and sizes made of any kinds of materials can be catered for.

In association with Hoppmann Corporation, RNA offers a full range of tooled centrifugal feeders. With RNA's feeder expertise the centrifugal feeder systems can be interfaced and supplied as a complete packaging line with further production transportation via downstream conveyor systems to subsequent packaging operations such as capping, labelling, flow wrapping and cartoning machines
Cartoning machines
A cartoning machine or cartoner, is a packaging machine that forms cartons: erect, close, folded, side seamed and sealed cartons.Packaging machines which form a carton board blank into a carton filled with a product or bag of products or number of products say into single carton, after the filling,...

.

The RNA Step Feeder is a compact low noise alternative to a bowl feeding system and in many circumstances components can be tooled without the aid or air. The RNA step feeder is manufactured in such a way that the static hopper, which has a very low filling height, can be loaded manually. The components are collected from the hopper by elevating plates, pre-sorted and fed to the top without any further feeding technique until they reach the desired transfer height.

Directional Carpet Linear feeders are developed to orientate components where a step feeder or bowl feeder is not suitable They enable gentle handling of oriented components from bulk to escapement devices creating product accumulation prior to a machine or handling unit. Large Heavy & bulky components contaminated in oil or swarf can be oriented and conveyed to a machine using a carpet feeder.

Specialist handling

RNA are experts in the field of Vision Guided Robotic Systems
Vision Guided Robotic Systems
- Introduction :A Vision Guided Robot System comprises three core systems including robotic system, vision system, and component bulk handling system ....

. All systems have a Robotic arm for handling and manipulating the product, a camera system and share the same PC based control system and in most cases integrated with a standard robot controller.

RNA alongside camera specialists Machine Vision Technology
Machine vision
Machine vision is the process of applying a range of technologies and methods to provide imaging-based automatic inspection, process control and robot guidance in industrial applications. While the scope of MV is broad and a comprehensive definition is difficult to distil, a "generally accepted...

 has developed a tablet inspection system to inspect and sort tablets up to and over 1000 parts per minute. The specification of a tablet inspection system is as follows:

A 600mm diameter vibratory bowl feeder
Bowl feeder
Vibratory bowl feeders are the most common devices used to feed individual components in Industrial Assembly Automation Applications. Vibratory feeders are self-contained systems, comprising a specially tooled bowl feeder that orients the parts, a vibrating drive unit, upon which the bowl feeder is...

in Stainless Steel and a variable speed controller.
A speed of 800 - 1000 tablets per minute
Outputs onto a conveyor with a reject sort facility.
With up to four double speed progressive scan cameras and lighting mounted along the conveyor.
A high speed PC with a 17 inch LCD display mounted in a SS enclosure.
The system is designed to pharmaceutical standards
The software complies with FDA requirements, all documentation is to CFR 21 pt 11, with the fully validated version option.

RNA Automation provide a solution for handling pouch and sachets not normally feasible with vibratory feeding equipment. RNA pouch and sachet handling systems are the market leading solution for the food and packaging industry due to its innovative and highly original design.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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