System and method for mounting an item of switchgear cabinet equipment of modular construction

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11901707-B2
Application number	US-201917048960-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 17, 2019
Priority date	Apr 20, 2018
Publication date	Feb 13, 2024
Grant date	Feb 13, 2024

Abstract

A system and method for mounting a modular switch cabinet equipment in a switch cabinet housing (6) includes a computer-aided assistance unit (1) for determining a production-efficient assembly step sequence. The system and method further include at least one display unit (11-11′) for image and/or text information, which is installed at the assembly site for at least one fitter (M) in order to visualize manual assembly steps (A; B; D) of the determined assembly step sequence. The system and method further includes at least one input unit (12-12′) for acknowledgement of the completed assembly step (A; B; D) by the fitter (M).

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method for mounting a modular switch cabinet equipment in a switch cabinet housing ( 6 ), which is equipped with at least one fastening means for a plurality of electrical or electronic installation modules ( 5 - 5 ′″), the method comprising the following steps:
a) provision of a planned design ( 2 ) for an application-specific configuration of the switch cabinet equipment to a computer-aided assistance unit ( 1 ),
b) preparation for assembly by analysis of the planned design( 2 ) and disassembly into individual assembly steps (A, B, C, D) which build on one another and are to be carried out by a fitter (M) or a robot device (R) by the computer-aided assistance unit ( 1 ) for determining an efficient assembly step sequence, wherein in case ( 1 ) where the fitter (M) is designated to carry out an assembly step (A; B; D) of the determined assembly step sequence, the following steps are carried out by the fitter (M):
c) visualization of a manual assembly step (A) of the determined assembly step sequence by a display unit ( 11 - 11 ″) installed at an assembly site for the fitter (M) for image and/or text information as assembly instructions,
d) performance of the manual assembly step (A) by the fitter (M) in accordance with the image and/or text information,
e) acknowledgement of completion of the manual assembly step (A) via an input unit ( 12 - 12 ″) installed for the fitter (M) at the assembly site for logging the completion and for calling up a next planned assembly step (B) by the computer-aided assistance unit 1 ), wherein, in addition to the steps c) to e) to be carried out manually by the fitter (M) according to the case (I), at least one automated assembly step (C) to be carried out with the aid of a robot is defined in a case (II) as a result of an analysis by the computer-aided assistance unit ( 1 ),
wherein the automated assembly step (C) c′) is issued by the computer-aided assistance unit ( 1 ) in the form of machine-readable assembly instructions for the assembly of the switch cabinet equipment to the robot device (R);
wherein d′) the robot device (R) carries out the automated assembly step (C) in accordance with robot control, and
e′) after completion of the automated assembly step (C), the computer-aided assistant unit ( 1 ) acknowledges the automated assembly step (C) to log the completion and to call up a final assembly step (D).

2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the computer-aided assistance unit ( 1 ) determines an efficient assembly step sequence on the basis of an alignment of available production resources of fitter (M) or the robot device (R) for carrying out the assembly steps (A, B, C, D) in order to convert the automated assembly step (C) into a manual assembly step (C) if the robot device (R) is not available.

3. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the computer-aided assistance unit ( 1 ) makes a selection between different variants of assembly step sequences on the basis of a shortest possible assembly time or required assembly resources assembly of the switch cabinet equipment.

4. The method according to claim 1 , wherein after the acknowledgement e) or e′) step: f) installation tolerances of the thew plurality of electrical or electronic installation modules ( 5 - 5 ′″) are checked by sensors, the installation tolerances g) are passed on as tolerance information by the computer-aided assistant unit ( 1 ) to a next assembly step, so that h) an evaluation of permissibility of deviations within a specified tolerance field is carried out before a subsequent assembly step is released.

5. A system for mounting a modular switch cabinet equipment in a switch cabinet housing ( 6 ), which is equipped with at least one fastening means for a plurality of electrical or electronic installation modules ( 5 - 5 ′″), the system comprising:
a computer-aided assistance unit ( 1 );
a display unit ( 11 - 11 ″);
an input unit ( 12 - 12 ″); and
an analysis algorithm;
wherein the computer-aided assistance unit, the display unit, and the input unit are implemented to perform the following steps:
a) provision of a planned design ( 2 ) for an application-specific configuration of the switch cabinet equipment to the computer-aided assistance unit ( 1 ),
b) preparation for assembly by analysis of the planned design( 2 ) and disassembly into individual assembly steps (A, B, C, D) which build on one another and are to be carried out by a fitter (M) or a robot device (R) by the computer-aided assistance unit ( 1 ) for determining an efficient assembly step sequence, wherein in case (I) where the fitter (M) is designated to carry out an assembly step (A; B; D) of the determined assembly step sequence, the following steps are carried out by the fitter (M):
c) visualization of a manual assembly step (A) of the determined assembly step sequence by the display unit ( 11 - 11 ″) installed at an assembly site for the fitter (M) for image and/or text information as assembly instructions,
d) performance of the manual assembly step (A) by the fitter (M) in accordance with the image and/or text information,
e) acknowledgement of completion of the manual assembly step (A) via the input unit ( 12 - 12 ″) installed for the fitter (M) at the assembly site for logging the completion and for calling up a next planned assembly step (B) by the computer-aided assistance unit 1 ), wherein, in addition to the steps c) to e) to be carried out manually by the fitter (M) according to the case (I), at least one automated assembly step (C) to be carried out with the aid of a robot is defined in a case (II) as a result of an analysis by the computer-aided assistance unit ( 1 ),
wherein the automated assembly step (C) c′) is issued by the computer-aided assistance unit ( 1 ) in the form of machine-readable assembly instructions for the assembly of the switch cabinet equipment to the robot device (R);
wherein d′) the robot device (R) carries out the automated assembly step (C) in accordance with robot control, and
e′) after completion of the automated assembly step (C), the computer-aided assistant unit ( 1 ) acknowledges the automated assembly step (C) to log the completion and to call up a final assembly step (D).

6. The system according to claim 5 , wherein the analysis algorithm ( 10 ) is implemented in the computer-aided assistance unit ( 1 ), which analyses the planned design ( 2 ), at least comprising a digitized three-dimensional layout ( 3 ) and a parts list information ( 4 ) of the plurality of electrical or electronic installation modules ( 5 - 5 ′″), into the individual assembly steps (A, B, C, D) which build on one another, in that the analysis algorithm ( 10 ), by accessing at least one knowledge database (W), assembles the plurality of electrical or electronic installation modules ( 5 - 5 ′) to be assembled in a defined according to the individual assembly steps (A; B; C; D) and an associated assembly instruction in a defined order.

7. The system according to claim 5 , wherein the computer-aided assistance unit ( 1 ) accesses a visualization database (V), on which data objects of an assembly step library are stored, in which image or text information for the individual assembly steps (A, B, C, D) is stored.

8. The system according to claim 5 , wherein the computer-aided assistance unit ( 1 ) for step sequence control interacts with a tolerance evaluation device (T) for checking actual installation positions of the plurality of electrical or electronic installation modules ( 5 - 5 ′″) detected by sensors with a nominal specification taking into account specified installation tolerances.

9. The system according to claim 5 , wherein the computer-aided assistance unit ( 1 ) processes information from a

Assignees

• Rittal Gmbh & Co Kg

Inventors

• Weichsel Thomas
• Michels Thomas
• Martin Lars
• Zachrai Judith

Classifications

• H02B1/308 Primary

  Mounting of cabinets together · CPC title

• G05B19/41805 Primary

  characterised by assembly · CPC title

• H02B3/00

  Apparatus specially adapted for the manufacture, assembly, or maintenance of boards or switchgear · CPC title

• G05B2219/31027

  Computer assisted manual assembly CAA, display operation, tool, result · CPC title

• G05B2219/31044

  Assembly of modular products, variant configurability · CPC title