Our Blog

We love to finish an integration with a happy customer! Here is a list of projects and milestones in the business.

Student Tour

This week we reached out to our local colleges, Southern Utah University and Utah Tech University, to invite their engineering students into our shop. We showed them what we are working on, answered their questions, and talked about engineering careers in general, in the automation industry, and at IME Automation.

There was so much enthusiasm and excitement while working with the FANUC robots, discussing the future, and geeking out over the amazing ideas out there!

We are looking forward to more opportunities to reach students in southern Utah! We want to help them see some of their possible career paths.

This happened because several students reached out at the same time. We were happy to take the time and show them around. We are receptive to hosting similar tours with the wider community! Automation is a great career, and more accessible than many realize!

Project: Metal Part Sorting

This local manufacturer of small metal parts asked for our help to automate packaging and part count.

  • We built them a machine that:
    • Allows them to customize how many parts go in a box
    • Holds four boxes
    • Tells them:
      • which ones are full,
      • which are empty, and
      • which one is in process.
  • When the press goes down:
    • The Patlite alerts employees that it's down
    • Our system tracks the cause of the downtime
    • It records which problems cause the least and most downtime
The machine uses a light curtain to measure part output and guide them to one of four boxes.
Control and safety modules are housed in a control box. This facilitates organized wiring and quick access for easy maintenance and upgrades.
Thanks to the integrated Human Machine Interface (HMI), it's easy to interact with the system to monitor and control its function.

This technique could be applied to parts of various sizes coming from many types of equipment. Reach out to info@imeautomation to share what you have in mind!

Sparky is at Cosmoprof 2022!

It's been a long time since the humble first reveal of Sparky the Robot. Since then, this company has grown and made numerous improvements on the original design. This week at Cosmoprof 2022, we're able to show off a few of the things we've finished.
One discovery we made is that many customers need a machine capable of packaging several different products. Sparky has a serious advantage thanks to its versatile robot platform. Since the only fixed part is the robot's gripper, any tooling can be used and changed out within seconds.
On the second shelf down at the show, we have real examples of tooling for different boxes. The plate on the left is a complete module with a set of tooling and a tray that perfectly matches the cartons. Changing the plate for another is quick and easy enough for anyone to do. The RFID chip in the plate allows its Sparky to recognize it automatically and know what program to run.
We hope you stop by our booth at Cosmoprof Las Vegas! Please take a box, you will find surprises inside! If you missed us, don't worry. Feel free to email info@sparkytherobot.com for more information, or schedule a meeting on our website!

Sparky is alive and well!

It's been several months since the first video of sparky went up, and we haven't published much more since then. The truth is, we've been hard at work. We've hired eight more employees and taken on several large projects with our clients. There are some amazing projects just around the corner! We are also almost finished with a new Sparky that has tons of improvements and shows off some sweet upgrades. Stay tuned for more updates, because you won't want to miss what's next!
Today, we're excited to announce the new Sparky website. Featuring a unique logo, upgraded graphics, and extra information, it's built from the ground up for Sparky! The new site is built using Shopify, which was chosen for its high quality and versatility in web design. It includes a ton of features, and all of them come together well to make a website that is both fully customized and easy to use.
Shopify also allowed us to make it easy to order a Sparky. In the catalog section, there are products listed for the growing number of robot packages available. Within each one, anyone can purchase the proof of concept for their own box right within the website! We are happy to do the work on our R&D robot to make customers confident in their purchase. This is a step that is lacking elsewhere, as many products require a lengthy ordering process. The new website makes it easier than ever to automate packaging with Sparky!

sparkytherobot.com

We're Moving!

Incredible family support is what allows IME Automation to exist today. With an exciting year of growth behind us, we've moved from a side venture into a fully-fledged business. Until now, operations have run from a family member's backyard garage, which allowed us to scale up from zero. However, over the last year, it's been increasingly cramped with top-tier team members. This new location will better provide what's needed by the company as it takes on more projects to help more people. We would like to thank our families for making IME Automation a reality!

The new address is:
2417 W. 350 N. Unit #2