2011-10-13 - ABB robots are helping the world’s leading manufacturer of personal brush products produce one million toothbrushes a day that are used for daily dental care by hundreds of millions of people in some 80 countries all over the world.
By
ABB Communications
Swiss-based Trisa has been manufacturing brush products for almost 125 years and is now the world’s leading manufacturer of brushes for dental care, hair care and body care.
About 97 percent of the company’s output is exported to around 80 countries in Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, China and India. Amazingly, one hundred percent of all Trisa products are made at a single factory in Switzerland.
Trisa manufactures a mass-produced product in a high wage economy. To remain competitive the company invests intensively in new products and robot based automation.
Around 50 ABB robots are at work at the Trisa factory, primarily in the packaging process. Most recently the company invested in one IRB 1600 and seven IRB 140s for a new production line at the factory.
ABB delivers the robots in blue – Trisa’s corporate color. Acting as its own system integrator, Trisa incorporates the robots into existing or new production systems and performs the programming itself.
“It is essential that we can modify our robot systems very quickly and flexibly,” says Josef Lötscher, head of Trisa’s technology unit. “We also have limited batch production runs, and we can’t afford to be idle for long periods.”
Lötscher values Trisa’s good relationship with ABB’s specialists, as well as the reliable, low-maintenance robots, such as the older IRB 2400 which picks up six wrapped toothbrush batches in a particular order, places them in a rack, selects a label and sticks it on.
The robot also checks that no packaging has been forgotten. Nothing escapes its sensor-eye, ensuring that the end customer in the shop can select the perfect toothbrush.