Automation of Production for Diagnostics and Life Sciences

Customer-Specific Automation Solutions in the Manufacture of Testing and Consumer Products

Diagnostic testing and other bio and medical consumer products are unique in regard to their materials, the number of components to be manufactured, the volume and viscosity of the reagents, the printing, packaging and in many other ways. In addition, there are other demands, in particular output, cycle times, the degree of automation and machine availability.

These individual demands constitute the basis of industrial machinery from Metzner, tailored to the specific requirements of each different customer. This equipment ranges from automatic cells, rotary indexing cells and robotic cells right up to complete production and assembly lines for quality-assured mass production.

The Metzner machinery is distinguished by high reliability and simple operation and guarantees constant high production quality with minimal cost per piece. In-process checks, which enable early sorting of good and defective parts achieve further reductions in raw material usage and costs.

Metzner Semi-Automatic Cells

The Semi-Automatic Cells provide the entry-level solution to partly-automated manufacture and assembly. These cells are laid out as partly-automated manual work stations whereby the cost-intensive and quality-relevant manufacture and assembly operations are conducted automatically. Possible areas of application:

• A first step away from manual production towards production automation

• Semi-automated production of small batch quantities

• Optimisation of assembly for fully-automated large-series production

• In-process monitoring

Metzner Robotic Cells

The Robotic Cells are equipped with 4-axis Scara or 6-axis articulated robots and enable the most varied pick and pick-and place operations to be carried out. Thanks to a unique visual recognition system, all the robotic cells are capable of undertaking complex handling tasks of randomly arranged manufactured parts. Possible areas of application:

• Complex pick-and –place operations

• Handling of small parts (loading and unloading), 

• Stages in quality control

Metzner Rotary Indexing Systems

The Rotary Indexing Systems make possible complex manufacture and assembly operations in the smallest space and, according to requirements, allow the integration of several bench-top systems in multi-stream arrangement. Possible areas of application:

• Fully-automated assembly

• Quality-assured large-series production

• Compact design

Metzner Production and Assembly Lines

The production and assembly lines provide fully automated mass production and can be designed for single, double or three-shift operation. The production and assembly involves individual but connected cells, into which distinct production components are fed and individual manufacturing steps are carried out. Possible areas of application:

• Fully-automated complete assembly of complex products, quality-assured mass production

• Quality-assured mass production

• One, two or three-shift operation

• Modular design concept allows later exchange or further integration of individual assembly cells