Case Study

A turnkey FANUC robotic automation line for aluminum truck wheel hubs with a sub-six-month ROI.

Industry: Transportation

A Tier-1 North American commercial-vehicle wheel manufacturer was running a fully manual operation to move aluminum wheel hubs through machining and finish processing. The process was slow, inconsistent, and exposed operators to repetitive heavy-part handling. The customer wanted to automate the entire flow (infeed cell, multiple machining stations, QC, washer feed) on a fast-track build with a firm budget and a launch date that could not slip. The customer’s PO was explicit on the point: “100% on-time delivery” was a contractual requirement.

Han-Tek delivered a turnkey, multi-million-dollar FANUC-based robotic line that hit all three targets. The customer recouped the investment in under six months.

Their Challenge:

Completely automate a previously manual aluminum wheel hub line, removing operator exposure to heavy repetitive lifts and improving throughput consistency, without disrupting the rest of the plant during build-out.
Design, build, and commission a multi-cell robotic line on a fast-track schedule despite the 28-30 week lead time on the heavy-payload FANUC robots required to handle aluminum hubs at production speed.
Stay within a firm, multi-million-dollar capital budget covering robotics, conveyance, controls, machine-tool integration, and zoned safety guarding.
Integrate with the customer’s existing machining centers across multiple interface points (17 machine interface panels in total), and add 3D-vision-guided part recognition at the infeed to handle multiple wheel hub part numbers without operator setup at the gripper.
Coordinate with on-site contractors so that footer-depth modifications, overhead crane access for elevated rail installation, and machine-tool interconnects all converged on schedule.

Our Solution:

Han-Tek engineered a turnkey robotic materials handling automation system built around FANUC Robotics R-2000/200R heavy-payload robots: one floor-mounted infeed robot and three rail-mounted overslung toploader robots, all running on FANUC R-30iA controllers with Han-Tek-engineered custom end-of-arm tooling and 2-part hand-off stands on each robot carriage.
Two elevated FANUC overslung toploader rail systems (one 12-meter, one 14.5-meter, center-column-mounted at 96-inch height) carry rack-mounted robots through the machining cells, providing the long-axis travel needed to span operations 30, 40, and 60 in a single coordinated motion path.
The infeed robot uses FANUC iRVision 3DL three-dimensional laser vision for automated wheel-hub recognition, with a separately decoupling vacuum end effector that handles corrugated dunnage slip sheets between part layers without operator intervention.
An Allen-Bradley ControlLogix PLC in a NEMA-12 enclosure runs the line via two separate Ethernet/IP networks (one dedicated to I/O, one to machine-tool communications), with four remote Allen-Bradley HMI panels and 17 machine interface panels integrated through Han-Tek’s multi-protocol controls scope.
Five accumulating and chain-driven live-roller transfer conveyors move hubs between the infeed cell, machining operations 30/40 and 60, the QC/Packout zone (with reversing flow for inspection), and the downstream washer feed.
A zoned operator-safety system built on a Jokab Pluto Safety PLC, with Jokab lock-out/tag-out devices, magnetic locking, Adam/Eva safety switches, twelve sliding doors across machine and QC zones, and two high-speed panel doors at the fork-truck infeed loading positions.
Han-Tek acted as single-point project manager across the multi-vendor build (FANUC robotics, Alba conveyors, Allen-Bradley controls, Jokab safety hardware), coordinating daily with on-site contractors handling footer modifications and machine-tool interconnects so every workstream landed on the same launch date.

The Results:

On-time launch on a contractually fixed date: The customer’s PO required 100% on-time delivery and the line went into production on the projected start date, despite the 28-30 week FANUC robot lead time and parallel coordination with on-site contractors.
Sub-six-month ROI: The customer recouped the full multi-million-dollar capital investment in less than six months from the production launch date.
Manual handling eliminated: Operators were removed from the heavy-lift portions of the line, dramatically reducing repetitive-motion exposure and the safety risks associated with moving heavy aluminum hubs.
Quality consistency: 3D-vision-guided part recognition combined with FANUC’s coordinated motion software, DCS (Dual Check Safety), and SoftFloat eliminated the variability of the previous manual process.
Within budget: The full project landed on the originally agreed budget across robotics, conveyance, controls, and safety guarding, despite the aggressive timeline.
Long-term partnership: The original wheel hub automation line opened the door to additional Han-Tek work at the same plant including heat-treat robotic cells, depalletizers, line-safety upgrades, mega-line improvements, and boxing-station automation in subsequent years.

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