An ergonomic electromechanical actuator for tower

clamping systems for risk and fatigue reduction

Jorge Reyes Carlos Ojeda Luis Paiba
Department of Mechanical-Electrical Department of Mechanical-Electrical Head of Design and development
Engineering Engineering ALLMATIC-Jakob Spannsysteme GmbH
Universidad de Piura Universidad de Piura Pfronten, Germany
Piura, Peru Piura, Peru [Link]@[Link]
[Link] [Link]@[Link]

Abstract— In industry in general, productivity and safety

are two crucial aims that, to be optimized, seem to go in opposite
directions. In mechanical design, systems are built or improved
to optimize productivity, complying international industrial
safety standards. Within this framework, the clamping systems
for the milling industry are in constant development. This
article presents an electromechanical system designed to drive
special tower clamping systems used in horizontal milling, the
development procedures, and its economic and social impacts.
The main achievements of the design were increasing the
accuracy of the force applied to the workpiece, reducing the
operating times of the clamping process, and providing an
ergonomic workplace for the operators, with a biomechanical
approach. The economic benefits, besides the evident increase in
production rate, are mainly related to the reduction of fatigue
and risks of injury of the operators. This improvement increases Fig. 1. Two clamping towers from Allmatic.
the presence of experienced operators because the detected risks
of injury increase significantly with age. It also prevents sudden
falls of production rate and reduces stress, presenteeism and the
risk of injuries becoming chronic. As a social advantage, all
these benefits are also perceived by the operators, as their safety
and job satisfaction are improved.

Keywords— electromechanics, design, machine tools, safety,

ergonomic.

I. INTRODUCTION
In the manufacturing industry, the optimization of
productivity and safety is crucial, although they seem to go in
opposite directions. Within this framework, the German
company ALLMATIC-Jakob Spannsysteme GmbH Fig. 2. An operator in Allmatic using a crank on a clamping tower.
(hereinafter referred to as “Allmatic”) produces vices for CNC
milling with a special kind of spindle, which has an internal This evidences that safety and production do come
mechanism to multiply the clamping force. This reduces the together. Therefore, the actuator presented in this work was
required input torque on the spindle to less than one-fifth, developed by focusing on improvements for both aspects.
which is provided by the operator with a crank. This also
increases the repeatability of the clamping force. For the The system was named Bediengerät, a German word for
horizontal milling process, the clamping is usually performed “Operator gadget”. It was designed as an accessory for
by vices mounted onto towers, such as those manufactured by horizontal milling machines which use the tower clamping
Allmatic, presented in Fig. 1. systems of Allmatic. This device provides the torque required
for the clamping, instead of the operator with crank. The
However, in the operation of tower clamping systems with interface of the device allows the operator to adjust the
a crank and despite the reduced input torque, some risks of clamping force and speed, which are limited by the program
shoulder and upper back injuries have been detected by to follow the European safety standards.
biomechanical and medical specialists. As they explained,
these risks emerge due to the high position of the upper end of II. METHODOLOGY
the spindle (see Fig. 2). This problem affects mainly the For the development of the design, a prototype was built,
availability of experienced operators because the detected with two main objectives: evaluating the resistance and
risks of injury increase significantly with age. According to lifespan of the mechanical components and developing the
the same specialists, the German law about the health automation and control methodology. The prototype was
insurance will grant long medical breaks for this kind of continuously upgraded until becoming the final model to be
injuries, which results in large production losses. Many released to the market.
studies have shown that healthy and satisfied employees are
also more effective [1].

978-1-7281-8367-1/20/$31.00 ©2020 IEEE

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A. Hardware of the vice to measure the force. Then, the motor of the
The manufacture parts and 3D printed parts were designed Bediengerät prototype was activated to run until a current
using SolidWorks. The structural parts were manufactured by value was reached, and a pair of data of Force vs. Current limit
Allmatic in its turning-milling center, with the 16MnCr5 case was obtained. These tests were performed 1000 times for each
hardening steel and the AlMgSi0,5 aluminum alloy. An spindle to obtain a relevant data bank. In the Fig. 4, it can be
Ultimaker printer was used for the 3D printing, and the observed that the relation between the motor current and the
material used was the Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS). clamping force can be approximated to a linear equation.
The motor of the device is a 48V brushless direct-current
motor (BLDC) from the maxon group, and it’s mounted with
a Neugart gearbox with a ratio of 32:1.
The electronics were designed in KiCad, with a Teensy 3.2
board as the processor for the program written in Arduino. The
motor controller was the ESCON Module 50/8 HE (hereinafter
referred to as “Escon module”), also from the maxon group.
B. Information flow
The operator interacts with the Bediengerät through
several switches, a potentiometer, and a liquid-crystal display.
First, three parameters must be specified: the type of spindle
used, the desired clamping force and the maximum rotation
speed of the vice. Then, the operator must attach the device to
the upper end of the spindle and push the respective button to
clamp or release a workpiece. The Escon module constantly Fig. 4. Force (kN) vs Current limit (A) on a NC8 type spindle.
measures the instantaneous current and sends it to the Teensy
board as an analogic signal. The Teensy board processes both Thanks to these equations, the input variable was changed
the input information from the user and the Escon module and from a current value to the desired clamping force. This
outputs three digital signals to the Escon module: enable, allowed the operator to input the clamping fore directly, as the
rotation speed and rotation direction. An automatic stop will Bediengerät would calculate the limit value for the current by
be commanded by the Teensy board when the desired taking the corresponding linear equation.
clamping force is achieved. As the total system output, the
motor-gearbox unit is controlled by the Escon module Finally, a last set of tests were performed in order to
according to the three signals from the Teensy board. Fig. 3 upgrade the system with a smart braking, by gradually
presents a flow diagram of the described process. reducing the rotation speed, in order to eliminate the effect of
inertia at the stop. This was achieved by processing
information from the whole current profile along the clamping
cycle, rather than just waiting for a current value to appear. In
the Fig. 5, the current peak of 6 A at the instant 2.3 s
corresponds to the start of the clamping.

Fig. 3. Flow diagram of the control process of the Bediengerät.

C. Automatic stop
In the milling industry, the clamping force is a very Fig. 5. Current value along the clamping process and automatic stop with a
sensitive factor for vibrations, workpiece deformation and DUO Plus type spindle.
displacement of the clamped workpieces. Therefore, it is
crucial for the Bediengerät to perform a precise automatic III. TECHNICAL RESULTS
stop. A tolerance threshold of ±1 kN was set by the
development area of Allmatic, which corresponds to a 5% A. Intuitive control
accuracy of a common clamping force of 40 kN. The design of the control scheme was oriented to a simple
and intuitive interface, so that any horizontal milling operator
To make the motor stop automatically when the clamping can use the Bediengerät, without neither previous training, nor
force is reached, the system measures the value of the a thorough reading of the operation manual. For this purpose,
instantaneous current at the motor. The tests involved placing the advanced configuration functions were separated into a
a force transducer from the Ahlborn brand between the jaws different menu, accessible only with a key. The spindle type

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[2] [3] [4], the desired clamping force and the rotation speed C. Modular design
can be modified with a friendly interface. The input force is The modular design of the product enables it to be
limited according to the spindle specifications, and the speed upgraded in later stages of development, as well as to be
is limited according to the European safety norms [5] [6]. combined with other newer products of the company. The
With an ergonomic three-position rocker switch, the latter was especially helpful because this project was
movement is activated. To maintain the movement, the switch developed under supervision of a company with a
must be kept pressed, otherwise, the motor will stop. This is a development area. In Germany, to have such area was only
very important detail, because it places the Bediengerät under common in big companies, but it is becoming more popular
the category of “hold-to-run control device”, which have a among medium and small companies. The Bediengerät is
high safety speed limit of 10 mm/s when operating mechanical made of pieces manufactured in the company, several
presses, as stated in the ISO 12100:2010 norm, section 3.26.3 purchase parts, and development electronics and 3D printed
[5]. Otherwise, the safety speed limit would be lower. parts that are very easy to modify. The purchase parts receive
no further mechanical shaping, and many of them are also
Additionally, two LED indicators provide the operator used by other devices of the company, which provides an
with visual information about the current state of the system, efficient project collaboration. Several unused ports are left
e.g. confirm a successful clamping, warn about a wrong user available for additional functions like sensors or buttons.
operation, among others.
IV. ECONOMIC SUSTAINABILITY
B. Repeatability
The two most frequently used models to assess the
The evaluation of this factor was focused on the measured economic benefit of a measure are the cost-benefit ratio and
value from a force transducer placed between the jaws of the the payback period. The sooner is used to compare the
operated vice. When evaluating the repeatability, two implementation costs in relation to the individual benefit
conditions were essential: values, while the latter is used to estimate the time needed to
• The motor and the electronic board shall not overheat amortize the investments made [1].
past their recommended limits stated in the datasheets, The work “Ergonomic benefits” carried out by the
in continuous operation at maximum load: one Fraunhofer Institute presents a summary of study results
clamping per minute with the DUO Plus type spindle. regarding the impact of ergonomic design measures, which
• The mechanical design shall behave properly, and no concluded that of 61 studies, the companies achieved an
signs of fatigue or wear are presented before the improvement in productivity of 20-30% in a 95% confidence
specified lifespan of a hundred thousand cycles. interval. On average, there was an increase of 25% [1].
The criteria to evaluate the repeatability was given by the On the other hand, the study shows that absence days due
mounting specifications of each spindle type. For example, to illness is the only visible risk related to lack of ergonomic
when a force of 40 kN is specified on a TITAN 2 type spindle, design measures, but there are many other indirect risks that
the acceptable range of output force is between 40 and 44 kN. can make up a much larger economic impact. For example,
The most critical parts were constantly checked for signs of presenteeism is the problem of injured or ill workers that still
fatigue or wear throughout the project. Technical concepts of go to work, who will be less efficient and more likely to make
design from the books in [7] and [8] were applied. mistakes. Chronic injuries might also appear due to long-term
prejudicial postures. This results in greater worker fluctuation,
An additional form of evaluation was measuring the total i.e. the need to recruit more often, which is time-consuming
energy of the spanning cycle. The calculation was the integral and those new employees have to be trained first and therefore
of the instantaneous current in amperes within the spanning cannot directly replace the productivity of experienced
interval in seconds. The program started calculating the employees [9].
integral when the movable jaw touched the workpiece,
electronically detected, and finished with the automatic stop As a summary, the Table 1 [1] presents the potential
command. As shown the Fig. 6, the data fit very well into a advantages of an ergonomic workplace for employees and
quadratic function, because the deformation of the workpiece employers. Many of the presented benefits for the employees
is always elastic. mentioned in the table will be explained in the next section.
V. SOCIAL SUSTAINABILITY
A. The machine operator as a human being
On principle, the operators of machines are human beings.
Thus, they must be valued as such; in other words, their
responsibilities, customs, dispositions, beliefs and values shall
be recognized. An important motivation of increasing interest
among companies is to listen and better register the
individuality of the employees, but it represents a great
challenge, due to the wide variety of personal and cultural
background among employees of a single company;
nevertheless, it is worth it as it has been proven to bring along
many benefits for the company as well. In this scenario, an
important motivation under the innovation in the design and
mounting of the ergonomic electromechanical system was,
Fig. 6. Cycle energy (A.s) vs Desired Force (kN) with a NC8 spindle type.

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besides offering improvements in the productivity, to increase term [12]. In the National conference for workplace health
job satisfaction and safety. promotion Freiburg 2006 [13], Ritcher pointed out that “one
of the main causes of burnout (referring to the mental collapse
TABLE I. BENEFITS OF AN ERGONOMIC WORKPLACE caused by overwork or stress) is the loss of reciprocity in the
Employers Employees social interactions. In other words, it is imperative to give
more than what we get.”
Safeguarding the performance of Reduction of visits to the doctor
all employees The Swiss Foundation for the Health Promotion estimates
Strengthening the identification Improvement of the health yearly the costs of the stress problem, and the estimation for
with the company conditions in the company 2018 was 6.5 billion Swiss Francs [14], the highest among the
Reducing production losses Reduction of fatigue last few years. This points toward the existence of a problem
Greater quality of products Improvement of quality of life that is beyond the specific decisions in the organization of
companies, it is rather closely related to the human nature of
Resilient employees prepared for Maintenance / increase of the own
fluctuating workloads efficiency
the operators with aspirations and needs.
Image enhancement Increasing job satisfaction D. Neurophysiological aspects on work performance
Flexible workstations for Co-design of the workplace and According to E. Grandjean [15], neurophysiological
employees of different sizes work flow studies on people who perform routine and repetitive
Strengthening competitiveness Healthy calorie consumption operations have shown that fatigue increases in monotonous
situations, and for this reason, the device designed for the
The project developers asked for opinions and points of company Allmatic has a series of ergonomic commands that
view of the operators, which was an additional expense of time are friendly, but that also capture the attention to avoid
and money, but completely worth it. Besides seeking for monotony, for example, the system requires paying attention
mechanical improvements, a big motivation was to adjust the to visual confirmations of the state of the clamping process by
system to the reality and needs of the operators from LED indicators.
companies of the metallurgic sector.
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