To achieve the greatest outcomes while automating a process as ancient as pottery production, creative thinking is vital. The glaze dipping process of one of the oldest pottery producers in the UK was completely automated by Adelphi Automation, a business that specialises in automation solutions, with the assistance of Rollon's specialised gantry system knowledge.

Nowadays, we almost take automation for granted; it is so ingrained in the industrial fabric that it is possible to perform it with one's eyes closed.

But that's definitely not the case. Like many other industrial processes, automation frequently conceals complexities and dangers that make it "conceivably impossible" to identify the optimal solution for that particular operation. The ability to think creatively and let go of the notion that "it has always been done this way" in order to try to come up with a fresh, more effective solution is also one of the biggest obstacles.

Adelphi Automation, a UK and Ireland-based automation solutions company that takes pleasure in taking on technically demanding projects and producing top-notch solutions, fully adopted this strategy and made "Engineering the Extraordinary" its own motto.

“Adelphi was founded almost twelve years ago, initially serving the aerospace industry. We grew rapidly, becoming quite successful across a broad range of applications, providing all types of automation solutions for robotic and assembly systems”, explains David Ashmole, director at Adelphi. “We don’t concentrate in any specific sector: everything we do is bespoke engineering, virtually all one-offs, and we do love a challenge!”, David says happily.

One of the latest projects that Adelphi has been working on, is automating production for one of the major historical pottery manufacturers in the UK.

“When we first got in contact with this pottery manufacturer, they needed to automate the cleaning of the pottery before further processing. They had been looking for an automation partner for two and a half years to move their business forward. In fact, they had twelve people per shift whose only task was to put the pieces into tumblers with wooden chips to clean all the dust off. They wanted to automate this stage not only to optimize the process but also to put to better use the skills of their employees, thus working around the difficulty of finding new talents. One of the main challenges was posed by the several different products they have within their portfolio, which includes historical ones, dating back 80-100 years. So, we needed to create an automation solution that would work no matter the geometry or size of the pottery piece”.

“We went around their production site for two days in order to provide them with a report of what we thought could and should be automated with minimum risk and maximum return on the investment”, explains David. “We successfully started off on a small project and we moved on from there. The project we’re currently working on is the third one for them in the span of nearly three years and aims at automating the glazing process”.

To achieve this goal, Adelphi relied on Rollon’s linear actuators and gantry systems, further corroborating the cooperation between the two companies that started years ago and turned into an out-and-out partnership.