Portable Automation for Feeding and Installing Fasteners

Recently developed portable tools have proven themselves capable of feeding and installing fasteners automatically. They eliminate the entire manual processes attendant to the selection and manipulation of fasteners. The fasteners are either stored in remote cassettes or in storage built into the tools themselves.

The paper will describe the various means of storing and automatically selecting the fasteners. Ergonomic enhancements, that offer reduced physical stress and provide a safer working environment, will be demonstrated. The configuration of two existing configurations, one suitable for Hi-lites© and the other for solid rivet installation, will be described.

The details of the actual installation process and the computer interaction available in support of the installation processes will be described, along with the effect of the man/machine system on the flexibility, predictability and cycle time reduction of the process.