Cobot approach in industrial production: Basic applications

Collaboration robots (or Cobot) can perform a variety of tasks, often high-precision and high-speed jobs that make it difficult for workers to operate. In industrial production, Cobot is often used to perform injection molding and assembly processes; screw; Polish; paste; preparation and welding; machine care; laboratory testing; transport; packing and loading. They can also be used to optimize efficiency in numerical control machining (also known as CNC).

Cobot will not completely replace people, but only assist them in their work, which may also create jobs for other workers. In fact, using cobot saves costs much more than human labor. Some studies show that in the US, the average cost to pay workers per hour is about 36 $, while this cost for robots is only about 4 $. The World Economic Forum believes that by 2020, 75 million jobs can be replaced by human-machine collaboration, but also about 133 million new jobs and roles will appear.

Kay Manufacturing, a car parts maker, has been using robots in production since 1996 and says it never cuts workers due to the effects of automation. The company’s workforce fell from 120 to 40 during the Great Depression, but now it has 180 people working in two factories. Kay’s Chairman Brian Pelke pointed out that workers quickly adapted to using the cobots the company invested in in 2018. The company’s first $ 47,000 cobot was fully operational in within 1 month. The staff finished the programming and commissioned it in just 90 minutes.

Brooklyn New Yorks-based Voodoo Manufacturing uses UR10 robots to load and unload goods onto 3D printed tables. According to Universal Robot, the cobot has tripled the company’s output and helped them cut costs by about 90%.

Another Universal Robot customer T&W Stamping, based in Youngstown, Ohio, wants to automate one of the most laborious parts of their metal fabrication process: “Resistance Welding”. This job is so complicated that their electromagnetic pulse welding equipment can cause the robot to stop working. However, the company used the UR5 robot worth about $ 35,000, and this cobot helped the company return its investment in less than 4 months, increasing equipment performance by 40% and freeing 3 riders. practice so they can focus on other tasks.

In general, manufacturers can easily see the effect of implementing Cobot if properly guided and implemented.

Productivity and Quality Office