Nearly all ceramic factories in Western countries have moved their mass production to low-cost regions. Ceramic artist Anu Pentik who founded Pentik in 1971 proudly defends craftsmanship. His company wanted to swim against the tide by creating all its ceramic products in Posio, a Finnish municipality located only a few kilometers south of the Arctic Circle.

The making of ceramics is manual labor. When a worker glazes tableware and shape dishes with a tool, they will repeat the same task hundreds of times a day. Tasks that are hard on the hands, shoulders and backs of the workers.

Pentik wanted to find a solution that enabled production automation while utilizing experienced employees’ skills for tasks of higher added value such as quality control. Freeing up workers from having to perform ergonomically unfriendly, monotonous tasks would also improve the employer’s image.

The dents are made using two 40 mm wet orbital sanding sponges. In the plate finishing cell, the cobot picks up the tableware from an automatic moulding line, and then – depending on the product – the robot places it up against either a horizontal or vertical sanding sponge used for forming.

According to Lassi Kaivosoja, the greatest challenge was to pinpoint the accurate pressure in order for the cobot to produce the desired form when working with clay. Sanding sponges are springy, so their pressure is not monitored. With a bit of testing the programmer got it adjusted to the needed pressure for Pentik’s creamics production.

The vacuum grippers include a motor with a bevel gearbox and a pneumatic slip ring. These enable the unlimited and programmable rotation of the suction cup.