Manufacturing Partner
Symmco, Inc. – A manufacturer of powdered metal components serving diverse industries, Symmco operates production facilities in Sykesville, PA and Surgoinsville, TN. The company is dedicated to advancing its manufacturing capabilities through precision engineering and process innovation.
Challenge
In powder metal component fabrication, “slugging” is a specialized process used to prepare porous sintered components for liquid metal infiltration. A solid metal slug-typically copper, bronze, or brass- is precisely placed onto a pressed metal component prior to sintering, enabling controlled infiltration that improves final material properties such as density, strength, and conductivity. At Symmco, this process is very manual and repeated across many different product lines, creating significant labor demands and potential production bottlenecks. Symmco sought validation that an automated solution could reliably handle both component placement and slug insertion within a single integrated system.
Solution
A Penn State New Kensington EMET Senior Capstone team, mentored by the Digital Foundry’s professional engineering staff, partnered with Symmco to design, build, and validate an automated slugging solution. Students had access to advanced manufacturing equipment, hardware, and software at the Digital Foundry, supported by our Technology Partners; of which the Digital Foundry extends a special thanks to CS Automation for their support of the students in working with a Mitsubishi SCARA robot. The student team’s work addressed the full automation sequence across three integrated areas:
- Programmatic Sequencing: Designed and validated a SCARA robotic system to work in conjunction with a PLC to pick and place parts in a specified sequence, thereby optimizing overall production cycle time.
- Slug Presentation and Placement: Developed a custom robotic end effector as well as part feeding hoppers needed to accurately place metal slugs onto plated components, ensuring correct positioning for consistent infiltration results.
- Component Fixturing: Engineered custom fixtures, a conveyance system, and supporting hardware to handle the varied geometries of Symmco’s products.
The resulting prototype demonstrated an automated workflow – moves a tray of six fixture oriented components on a conveyor to the robot, robot picks a set of metal slugs for one component, accurately positions group of slugs on one component, repeats pick and place process for all six components, and then sends the tray down the outbound conveyor – all with minimal manual operator involvement.
Impact
This Senior Capstone project concluded in May with the student team presenting their final design and a working prototype to Symmco. The project delivered on its initial objectives, successfully demonstrating the viability of an automated approach to a critical process step that spans multiple product lines and press flows. Symmco was happy with the outcome and discussed opportunities to advance automation concepts for this process further. The Digital Foundry team is committed to supporting this initiative beyond the student capstone to support any additional engineering or validation Symmco would like to explore. For Penn State New Kensington’s senior engineering students, the project provided a valuable opportunity to engineer practical automation solutions for a real-world industrial manufacturing environment and engage with experienced professionals in the field.
Penn State Student Team for Symmco: Tom Gniewkowski, Ethan Woodhall, Brandon Reese, Tanner Stockdill
“Working with Digital Foundry continues to exceed our expectations. Communication, attention to detail, and on time delivery are just a few reasons we will continue to team with them.”
-Shane Sprankle, Upstream Group Leader, Symmco, Inc.
“Working with the Penn State students was a great experience, watching them progress though the project and being able to pivot to a different approach anytime they hit a roadblock showed an amazing team effort and problem-solving skills. They should all be proud of the work they have done, they all have a bright future ahead of them.”
-Matt Gunning, Product Design & Development, Symmco, Inc.
