FANUC Robots Automate Coin Production at Swissmint

With the existing minting facility at Swissmint set for decommissioning due to its age, the organisation issued a public tender for its replacement. According to Adrian Richli, Head of Technology at Swissmint, mandatory criteria for the new system included: “Layout, autonomy, compactness and ease of operation.”  

Based on its robust and comprehensive proposal, Soldati AG, an Emmen-based specialist in bespoke machine building and automation, won the tender. 

“Swissmint wanted an automation system that could automate everything from individual coins to palletised boxes, including inspection processes,” explains Oliver Heinrich, 

Product Manager and Developer at Soldati AG. “The biggest challenge was processing the individual coin rolls in under 1 second. However, we are very innovative and found a new way of forming coin rolls into complete layers within the required cycle time. This was vital to the success of the project because minimising the cycle time here affects all subsequent parts of the system.” 

According to Heinrich, FANUC’s extensive product portfolio made it easy for Soldati to identify the optimal robots for the tasks at hand. 

Regarding the various phases of system automation at Swissmint, minted coins are transferred to the first robot cell in individual rolls that have already undergone processes such as weighing and printing (on the roll exterior).  

Within the robot cell, coin rolls are aligned at high speed into complete layers before a FANUC LR Mate 200𝑖D compact industrial robot picks 10 rolls simultaneously and places them into boxes. The boxes have already been automatically grasped, erected, stapled and transferred to the coin roll packaging system with the assistance of a FANUC LR-10𝑖A/10 compact industrial robot, which is ideal for a variety of vertical picking and machine-tending applications.  

 The system subsequently closes the flap of each box individually prior to strapping, weighing and printing operations. The boxes then see transfer to the labelling unit. 

 Another particular challenges was facilitating the unusually uneven palletising patterns required by Swissmint. Here, a special robot gripper and palletising program, created with ease using PalletTool® palletising software from FANUC, makes light work of this otherwise complex task. With the PalletTool® program, a FANUC M-20𝑖D/25 industrial robot uses its high-speed motion and proven repeatability to place the small but heavy boxes in the correct positions on the pallet.