Robotic Arm Component Set — 14 Parts, Single Supplier, Kitted
A complete set of 14 machined components for a collaborative robot arm, from 7075 structural links to 6061 sensor mounts, delivered anodised, laser-marked and kitted per arm.
Part specification
- Industry
- Robotics & Automation
- Process
- CNC Milling
- Material
- Aluminium 7075-T651 / 6061-T6
- Tolerance
- ±0.01 mm
- Finish
- Type II anodised, laser marked
- Quantity
- 60 sets / quarter
- Lead time
- 15 working days
Customer details withheld under NDA.
Challenge
The customer was buying these parts from five suppliers. Lead times drifted, revisions got out of sync, and assembly technicians spent time sorting parts and chasing missing items. One bearing housing consistently arrived with the bore 0.02 mm oversize, which meant hand-selecting bearings.
Solution
We took on the whole set. Parts were re-quoted as a family so material and setups could be shared, and the bearing housing bore was moved from a milled interpolation to a reamed operation with a dedicated fixture, bringing it into H6 consistently. All 14 parts now run against one release schedule, share one revision-control list, and ship anodised, marked and bagged per arm.
Result
Set cost fell 23 % against the sum of the five previous suppliers. Bearing selection was eliminated. Assembly time per arm dropped by roughly 40 minutes because technicians open a kit rather than sourcing from five bins, and revision mismatches have not recurred.
Consolidating five suppliers into one
Multi-supplier BOMs fail in predictable ways: the slowest supplier sets the build date, revisions propagate at different speeds, and nobody owns the interfaces between parts.
Quoting the set as a family let us share stock, share setups and schedule all 14 parts against a single release date.
The bearing housing fix
The original process interpolated the bearing bore with an end mill. Interpolation on a 52 mm bore leaves a slight lobing pattern and is sensitive to tool wear — hence the drift to oversize.
Moving to a drilled, bored and reamed sequence in a dedicated fixture brought the bore into H6 with roundness inside 0.004 mm, measured on every part with a calibrated bore gauge.
Kitting
Each arm's parts are bagged together, labelled with the arm variant and revision, and packed in a foam-lined tray. The assembly line receives one item, not fourteen.
Send us your drawing today
STEP, IGES, X_T, DWG, DXF, PDF or STL. Every file is treated as confidential and covered by NDA on request.