Bowl Feeder

A bowl feeder, or a bowl feeding system, is an accurate and efficient tool for sorting, ordering and orienting components and delivering them into a manufacturing or packing process at a specific feed rate.

Bowl Feeders are typically positioned at the start of a manufacturing process, an operator places a number of parts into a bowl or reservoir, the vibratory bowl feeder will then sort and orientate the components which are then fed into a linear or a nest as the first step in the production line or an index table ready to be fed into the machine.

Manufacturers and packers use bowl feeders because it removes the need to manually sort, orientate and load components. Instead of using an operator for the whole process, the operator is only required to load the mass of components into the bowl feeder and then they are free to complete other operations.

Bowl Feeding Systems are not a new technology, but they are still a cost effective option when compared to using operators or newer technology like picking robots. It is usually the case that if a business comes to us for a bowl feeding system they will already be using one, it is quite rare that somebody comes to us for a bowl feeder because they are looking to automate the process for the first time.

It might be interesting now with the UK leaving the EU and a reduction in migrant workers we could see more businesses automating these processes for the first time.

A newer development in bowl feeding systems is what they call check bowls. We have worked with Jaguar Land Rover who have parts that need to be checked to ensure that they meet the specified tolerance before they are introduced into the manufacturing process. The check bowl process involves the components passing a camera or sensor which detects that the components are correct. Any components that fail to meet the correct specification are removed to ensure that only the right components are packed and distributed.