Grant: Applied Research and Development Grants - Level 1

All-Fab Building Components LP is head-quartered in Winnipeg and operates a network of seven manufacturing facilities across Canada. The company specializes in the design and production of roof trusses, floor systems, wall panels, wood stairs and building structural members. All-Fab is especially reputable for their wide variety of products, excellence and commitment to innovation. The organization recently started investing significantly in automation to handle repetitive tasks with focus on improving productivity. This is enabling their staff to shift from those tasks to higher value activities within the production facilities. All-Fab is in the process of adopting robotic technologies for the sorting and stacking of machined roof truss components as part of their effort to automate their factories. This requires a careful evaluation of specific robotic solutions and tooling options to guarantee successful implementation. All-fab has identified a specific labour-intensive process of interest for this technology evaluation project. The complexity brought about by the widely varying sizes of the truss components, the volume of parts involved and the dependency of the process on preceding machining activities make it especially suited for automation at this time. There is currently a significant knowledge gap on how this automation could be implemented. Therefore, All-Fab requested to collaborate with the Technology Access Centre for Aerospace and Manufacturing (TACAM) at Red River College Polytechnic (RRC Polytech) to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the required robotic technologies. This will include evaluation of the robotic process using virtual programming and simulation, machine vision alternatives, robot-machine communications, human-machine interface and design recommendations. The TACAM team has the experience and expertise to support All-Fab's automation effort. The team will deploy capabilities in robotics programming, sensors integration, instrumentation and control, mechanical design and project management to deliver this project. Through this project, All-Fab will have an opportunity to evaluate and de-risk key robotic technologies before investing in the actual implementation. The company has the capacity to implement and further advance the research results for productivity improvement, gaining of competitive edge and driving their profitability. This project is important for the design and fabrication of building components for affordable housing in Canada. The College team is looking forward to applying their advanced manufacturing expertise to the building construction industry. The knowledge gained will benefit students/interns, research personnel and faculty and will be useful in future research engagements.