Efficient and Productive Warehouses and Archives

For the Cyber Engineering “High Speed Pharma Dispenser” automated warehouse, Automationware supplied the ML series linear axes. After an in-depth analysis and technical advice, the ML45 model was chosen, as it is capable of making the warehouse compact, light and fast at the same time.

by Chiara Giaccherini

Automationware has equipped its ML series linear axes with the Cyber Engineering “High Speed Pharma Dispenser” automatic warehouse, collaborating with the Ferrara-based company from installation to functional tests. Cyber is a specialist in the design and manufacture
of automated systems for storage and archiving.
It offers itself as a solution provider and system integrator, studying intelligent and customized solutions capable of maximizing the efficiency and productivity of warehouses and archives. The versatility and flexibility of the solutions designed by Cyber make them adaptable to any need for storage and archiving. The company has 37 years of experience in the health and pharma field.
The “High Speed Pharma Dispenser” automatic warehouse for drugs is a machine designed for dispensing individual pharmaceutical products within retail pharmacies. Created in the second half of 2018, it was studied and implemented thanks to careful technical advice from LDsolutions and Automationware together with Cyber technicians. The main purpose of the project was minimum size, in order to make the product compact, light and therefore easy to install, without compromise on drug collection time.

Smaller axes but always high speed
In an area of just under 3 square meters, the High Speed Pharma Dispenser is capable to manage up to 1000 channels with an average stock of 7/8 pieces for each single channel, therefore up to 7000/8000 pieces per machine. The picking speed is particularly high with a waiting time that never exceed 8 seconds, reaching an average of 6 seconds for each single pick up. The heart of the machine is the two-axis Y-Z portal which picks up the product. Automationware’s ML45 axes, with a 45 mm wide aluminum profile, made “High Speed Pharma Dispenser” a very fast machine, while decreasing the size of the axes previously installed by more than 40%. The translation is carried out with guides equipped with four recirculating balls, fixed to the anodized aluminum profile designed by Automationware; an innovative design that ensures high mechanical rigidity and low friction. The ML45 axes are, like all the company’s linear axes, fully electronically controllable and programmable in acceleration, speed and positioning, fast and reconfigurable in format changes.

Remote, real-time monitoring
Designed for the pharmaceutical retail sector, the “High Speed Pharma Dispenser” is a highly flexible solution. Thanks to Panasonic brushless servomotors and Automationware linear axes with high quality and precision recirculating ball guides, the Cyber automatic warehouse is capable to manage different types of product not initially contemplated: from the tobacco sector, where the weight is always very limited, to beverages, with weights even three times higher than the initial project.
The product is managed entirely by a proprietary Cyber Engineering web app called Ge.Far3, which is capable to monitor all machine movements in real time. Also in this sense, Automationware has been able to provide added value to the customer’s machine: the patented AwareVu device allows for remote, real-time monitoring of vibrations of the entire machine, thus predicting any malfunctions before the actual event.