Success Story
Like other industries, the woodworking sector faces challenges such as quality assurance, untapped efficiency potential, and a shortage of skilled workers. Automation can reduce errors, improve quality, and increase efficiency. It allows 24/7 production, performing tasks faster and more precisely than humans, freeing up human resources for other tasks.
HOMAG Bohrsysteme GmbH developed a solution to address these challenges. The company, part of the HOMAG Group, offers high-tech machines for the woodworking industry. Its solution automates loading a vertical CNC machining center. At the heart of the system is a robot that picks up workpieces from a stack, feeds them to the CNC machine, and correctly places them after processing. The key challenge here is that the workpieces are unique, and their shape and size are unknown, arranged chaotically. Additionally, each workpiece must be drilled individually. The relevant information is stored in a barcode on the workpiece, meaning this code must be read as well. Machine vision enables the process to be fully automated. MVTec HALCON allows the robot to recognize and safely grasp the workpieces while also reading and sending barcode data to the CNC machine for drilling the correct holes.
HOMAG’s fully automated system is used at MAB Möbel AG’s carpentry workshop in Muotathal, Switzerland. The company has produced quality furniture since 1951 based on ecological and design-oriented principles. "The further development of the cell with laser scanning and chaotic stacking was the function we had been waiting for," explains Luca Zingg, responsible for corporate development at MAB. "This allows the cell to meet our goal of batch size 1 production – and only then does automation make sense for us."
Previously, an employee manually loaded the CNC machine, scanned the barcode, and placed the workpieces. This repetitive task became physically demanding and inefficient. Tobias Schwarz, Senior Director of Product Development at HOMAG, explains: “MAB aimed to increase productivity, deploy employees more effectively, and reduce costs. Full automation also eliminates the need to sort workpieces before processing, saving time and increasing productivity.”
The challenge now was to create a new solution, as no similar system existed. The machine vision system faced difficulties due to workpiece diversity and different surface decors. Additionally, the system had to operate under ambient light, and the relatively flat boards needed to be reliably separated. "The implementation was technically challenging. But with MVTec HALCON, we were able to find a feasible solution that combines speed and precision," explains Schwarz.
The application uses several hardware components, including a six-axis robot with a vacuum surface gripper and a 3D laser scanner mounted on the gripper arm. The drilling operations occur in the DRILLTEQ V-310 CNC machining center from HOMAG. Regarding machine vision software, Tobias Schwarz says: "We have been using MVTec HALCON for quite some time. The software offers a large pool of machine vision operators and can be flexibly combined with various hardware components."
At MAB, the process works as follows: an employee places wooden workpieces onto a chaotic stack. The robot moves over the stack, and the 3D laser scanner scans it from above. From this, the scanner creates a 3D point cloud, a precise 3D representation. After image acquisition, MVTec HALCON extracts the top layer and determines the spatial position of each workpiece. A stacking algorithm calculates the optimal withdrawal sequence to avoid the stack from collapsing. The robot removes the workpieces in the calculated order and transfers them to the CNC machining center. The 3D laser scanner also captures a 2D image of the barcode, which HALCON reads and sends to the machine for processing. Afterward, the robot places the processed workpieces onto the target stack.
“Machine vision is gaining popularity in the woodworking industry. And our software MVTec HALCON offers numerous methods for inspection tasks and collaboration with robots. Consequently, it sustainably supports automation in this sector,” says Jan Gärtner, Product Manager HALCON at MVTec.
For the robot at MAB to work autonomously, MVTec HALCON performs several tasks. First, it converts the 3D point cloud into usable data. Using 3D object models, HALCON creates a coordinate system that is sent to the robot. Several HALCON operators determine the distance of the gripper to the pallet, calculate the top layer, and the position of each workpiece. These positions are integrated into the coordinate system and sent to the robot.
The 3D scanner also captures 2D images, which HALCON uses to read the barcode information on the workpieces. "The implementation wasn’t trivial due to the flat boards. We combined 2D and 3D vision methods, which was easily possible with HALCON,” Schwarz explains.
The system was put into operation at MAB Möbel AG in the summer of 2025. “Thanks to close collaboration with our partners, we were able to achieve very good results right from the start. Today, the system runs reliably, and we are confident that we can further increase our automation this way,” explains Luca Zingg.
“The additional level of automation significantly relieves MAB, as employees can now focus on other tasks. For us, this also represents an important development, as we can increase the automation level of our base machines and provide added value to our customers”, adds Tobias Schwarz.
