Welcome to the Total Workstation question and answer session.
Taking your questions in this Q&A is Adam Bigelow, Total Workstation Product Manager at Atlas Copco. In this session, we’re exploring Total Workstation solutions (TWS). Adam explains that TWS is comprised of many items, including torque arms, tubes, position system software and more, that support your tools, controllers and systems in your facility. The first audience question is about the torque range of our arms, which vary, as Adam explains.
Our smaller, “tabletop” torque arms like the SMC and SML Arms range from 12Nm-100+Nm. Our larger, floor-mounted articulated arms reach up to four meters and have a torque range of 270Nm-3000Nm. Adam goes on to discuss custom articulated arms that Atlas Copco can create, which often reach further and have higher torque ranges. For standard arms, Adam says that interested customers can inquire and receive arm quotations through their distribution center or their Atlas Copco representative.
The Q&A then goes on to the topic of Total Workstation positioning systems available. In the past, the two options, Adam explains, were TPS and PRS. As of 2020, Atlas Copco now has Industrial Location Guidance (ILG), which provides a bolt pattern that operators must follow during assembly, and SpotPoint, which was developed specifically for battery tools. ILG, Adam says, will eventually replace TPS and PRS, though the phase-out isn’t expected to take place until next year.
When a viewer asks a question about Atlas Copco’s Walk the Line program, Adam discusses the values of having an Atlas Copco representative come to your facility and observe your processes, in order to compile a list of solutions and tooling that will optimize your assembly process. Learn more about Walk the Line, offered at no cost to customers, by watching this webinar/Q&A hybrid, also led by Adam Bigelow. Following Walk the Line, the Q&A goes back into our positioning systems. We learn that if you already have an Atlas Copco torque arm in your facility, it can be updated to integrate with ILG.
The Q&A finishes off on the subject of standard tool holders for articulated arms. Customers can create a custom torque arm through the Application Center, or they can choose from standard options listed on a recently updated catalog, available through your Atlas Copco representative. Atlas Copco is always updating, enhancing, and adding solutions to our Total Workstation product portfolio.