It is not surprising to see the important role played by robots in the manufacturing of automotive mirrors. The market demands an ever-increasing variety of mirror shapes and sizes, among these flat, convex and aspherical mirrors with progressive curvature to eliminate driver blind spots. At the same time, manufacturers must provide the precision fitting and superb surface quality demanded by automotive manufacturers. To meet these challenges manufacturers employ state-of-the-art technologies.

The Flabeg Group, a subsidiary of the Pilkington Group, is one of the world's leading manufacturers of mirrors and technical glass with competence in silvering, coating, bending, cutting, toughening, printing and laminating glass. Among its products are Automotive Mirrors, Architectural Products, Solar Systems, Decorative Mirrors and Technical Glass. Flabeg uses sophisticated technologies, including robotics, to produce its high quality products while minimising production throughput time.

According to Dan Ford, electrical engineer at Flabeg Corp. Brackinridge, PA:

"RobotWorks has been tremendously beneficial for Flabeg. Its primary value has been to improve irregular contour following. Using RobotWorks to program the robots, we have seen a significant improvement in the consistency of the grind; the robots produce higher quality, more uniform results.

At the same time, RobotWorks has caused us a phenomenal time savings. The rapid transfer from CAD to robot has increased our production efficiency. We've experienced a particularly significant savings in handling new products. For example, in addition to regular production, we receive 10 - 15 mirror contours per week for prototyping. Using conventional robot teaching, each prototype would require us to take a robot away from production for about two hours. With RobotWorks, we create the prototype off-line. Instead of two hours, now we verify each prototype path on-line in about ten minutes. Twenty-five more hours per week of robot availability is without doubt a significant savings. RobotWorks is also so easy to use, that it has become standard software for our design and engineering department. I would recommend it to any manufacturer looking to get maximum value from their robots."