Most business leaders in manufacturing will agree that the economic recovery has been in progress for many months. Proposal activity is surging and orders are beginning to roll in again for the strong companies that have survived.
Fulfilling these new orders is not as straightforward as it once was. The context of the manufacturing business in the U.S. has changed. Global competitive pressure has been present for a long time now, but the economic downturn has forced companies to become very lean, both with equipment and manpower. With the prospect of new business that requires growth, we must rethink old assumptions and ask if there is a way to become more efficient and competitive in the world marketplace. How can a company do more with existing equipment and manpower?
Robotic automation is one of the solutions that can improve efficiency of manufacturing. As production requirements increase, robots can be used to efficiently tend existing machines for medium and large lifetime production volumes. Companies that currently produce parts with machine tools, injection molding, die casting or other machine-oriented processes should consider retrofitting with robotics for machine tending.
Why consider automation instead of just adding machine or personnel capacity? Robotics can act as a “force multiplier” for existing production resources. Once the robotic application is set up, the cost of running a production operation 8, 16, or 24 hours does not change much. Adding an extra shift of personnel requires effort of hiring, training, supervision, wages and all the associated overhead. After the robotic process is set up, the quality and repeatability of the process is very reliable.
As the economy heats up, production planning is not easily predicted by you or your customers. In an environment of wildly varying manufacturing volumes, automation makes even more sense. Follow-up production runs require only that the robot needs to be loaded with the tooling and program for the product; then the run starts.
Set-up: Setting up automation does not happen instantly. It requires planning, design and programming. Waiting until the big order comes in before thinking about the automation is a mistake. Instead, consider the type of production you do and create a strategy of how robotics can be utilized in a general way for these products.
Selection: Choosing a robot with a PC-based controller can provide the flexibility for future expansion as your business needs change. Consider the details of tooling design and robotic programming as part of your proposal process. Document set-up procedures for easy replication in future runs. Be smart and plan ahead so when the order arrives, you are prepared to move fast.
Machine retrofit: Retrofitting an existing machine can be simple or complex, depending on the goal. The robot will need to communicate with the machine in order to coordinate actions. For a simple process, it may need only a start-and-stop signal. More complicated processes will need signals passed to the machine and response signals received back.
Find out what capability your machine has for interfacing with a robot. It may be necessary to upgrade the machine with an external control option. Injection molding machines typically use an industry standard SPI interface. Machine tools are less standardized. They may require control signals like Start Cycle, Stop, Open Door, Close Door, Open Jig, Close Jig and Error Codes. Planning and upgrading the controls interface is an important preparation task that could be done in advance of the projects that require automation.
Planning: Starting automation planning early is important. Part of the process is building the skills of your team. In-depth training can help change the corporate culture from thinking “robotics is frightening” to “robotics is our way to stay a strong competitor”. Designating an automation champion within your organization can facilitate training and knowledge transfer.
Management needs to leave behind the old short-term thinking and adopt a long-term strategy for success. Instead of asking “How can I maximize profit from this opportunity?” think “How can I position my company to be more scalable and efficient for the future and profit from every opportunity?” Becoming more efficient is the best way to ensure long-term survival.
Automation has become synonymous with using robotics and machines to reduce or replace work traditionally done by employees. But robotics is only one part of how automation works in the manufacturing industry. Robotics like three- or six-axis robotic arms can be used for material handling and pick-and-place tasks, completing them faster and more efficiently than through labor alone. These industrial robotic applications can improve high-volume, repeatable processes, such as orienting a part on a conveyor belt and lifting heavy objects. Controls engineers can program robotics to do the same task the same way every time, or, using more advanced technology, they can program them to be more flexible.
Multi-robot dial table cell for the automotive industry
Not every manufacturing company will use robotics in every part of their production line. A manufacturer must define their problem before seeking a solution that solves that problem. Robotics may not be the right solution for a low-volume, delicate production process. For this reason, manufacturers should work with an experienced robotics integrator to ensure the solution they choose will improve their efficiency, uptime, and quality.
The benefits of robotics and automation in manufacturing are multifold. Manufacturers who install robotics and automation solutions into their production lines can improve productivity, accuracy, repeatability, and quality. Customers who have combined robotics, vision, conveyance, force sensing, and other advanced technologies in a total automation solution have seen a high return on investment and used the data from the machines to make better, more strategic planning decisions.
Factory robotics have been used since 1961 when General Motors first added the heavy-lifting robotic arm to transport die castings for welding on car bodies (a task that was unsafe for human workers to perform).
However, the automation robots (and cobots) in use today are vastly more advanced and affordable than when the patent was filed, and are now capable of a wide variety of tasks:
High-performance AC servo motors (a big upgrade from the hydraulic motors of the past) that now power factory robots reduce friction while improving flexibility and allowing exacting standards of precision in controlling velocity, torque and position.
Vision systems like laser scanners enable robots to “see” and understand both their surroundings and workpieces they are tasked to interact with; they can perform advanced tasks like recognizing and selecting components from bins, completing complex sequences of events to those components, and inspecting them for quality control with micron-level precision
The “Internet of Things” (IoT) can sync factory robotics with the rest of a manufacturers’ operations – connecting an entire manufacturing operation’s supply chain by integrating data from each machine to a single source of truth to eliminate bottlenecks and improve output and efficiency.
Advances in computing driven by algorithms allow robots to learn faster based on less information to monitor their own needs for preventative maintenance, and perform tasks with and alongside human workers.
Robotic automation will become more and more popular in modern mold production workshops, which means that many people will leave the mold industry