About
Fairlane, Established in 1957
We design, manufacture and stock a range of standard components used in machine tool workholding, specialty fastening and material handling. Our related business, Fixtureworks, supplies an extended range of standard machine components and complete workholding solutions.
The last decade has brought incredible progress to the area of factory automation. Lower costs and smarter products have enabled small businesses to invest in automating their production processes with robots.
Systems that were once highly dedicated, costly and required an integration specialist are now simplified and flexible in a way that many businesses are able to deploy and maintain the system themselves. Within any robot application, a reliable end effector is the crucial piece that allows a robot to interact with its surroundings.
Focused Where the Action is
“Since the beginning, our products have supported ‘points of contact.’ From serrated gripper inserts in lathe chuck jaws, swivel positioners and rest pads in stationary fixtures to rollers and bumpers in material handling applications. Fairlane products can be found in industrial automation at the point of workpiece contact. It is with this same attention to workpiece contact that we developed GripShape."
"Our vision is to advance the field of robot gripping for industrial automation.”
- Justin Gordon, president
Robot End Effector Grippers
The topic of dexterity in robot hands and robot grippers is an important area of research in industrial automation. Adaptive robot hands have multiple finger effectors with multiple degrees of freedom. They are well suited for general tasks by having the ability to accommodate a variety of workpiece geometries.
End effector grippers with simple open and close motions are best suited for industrial applications performing a specific tasks such as in assembly or pick-and-place. These grippers require tooling in the form of gripper fingers. Creating these gripper fingers can be a complex and time consuming process.
Our mission is to offer innovative solutions for tooling robot grippers.
“We’re pursuing solutions for a more automated gripper finger design process. By partnering with OEMs, researchers and subject matter experts, we are excited to bring advances to this area of industrial automation that enable users to create their own tooling.”
- Carlos Rios, engineer
GripShape for Tooling Grippers
GripShape offers design services, a design configurator, and manufacturing services for tooling robot grippers.
The GripShape configurator offers an automated process for users to design their own gripper fingers in about 10 minutes. The interface is easy to use and requires no CAD experience to customize a one-of-a-kind design in minutes.
Choose a representative workpiece and adjust its size. Adjust the finger length, grip width, grasp type and more. As you fine-tune your design, refresh the model to see your changes instantly. Once complete, download a parasolid CAD file to review the design in your own CAD project.
Committed to Our Customers
The configurator is a flexible tool, but if your gripper fingers require revisions or other design optimization, then request a quote in the purchasing section of the configurator and complete the form. Fairlane will review your design, provide basic feedback and quote the requested revisions.
For full service design and manufacturing, contact Fairlane to discuss your gripper project.
“With our GripShape product line, we're supporting our customers at the final point of contact. Whether that is done through the configurator application or by working with a Fairlane engineer, we’re here to assist in making design changes or designing a solution.”
- Nick Jenks, engineering director
From Start to Finish
From start to finish, we’re making custom gripper tooling easier than ever to design and purchase. Your design is made and assembled by Fairlane using additive manufacturing and CNC machining. Or choose to purchase the CAD download to machine or 3D print yourself.
To learn more about our business and the software behind GripShape, see the links below. We're making custom designs more accessible than ever with the use of Smart CAD models.
Fairlaneproducts.com | Fixtureworks.com | Getshape.com
Interested in partnering? We invite opportunities to work with others in the field of robot dexterity and automated gripper finger design in order to build smarter models and a more powerful GripShape configurator.
