Collaborative robots help businesses improve productivity and profitability (Part 2)

Thanks to advantages like quick payback, easy setup, easy control and high cost effectiveness, Cobot technology is an impossible investment for SMEs.

Until now, many manufacturers have assumed that only large-scale enterprises have the financial resources to apply robotics technology to their production lines. Industrial robots are usually large in size and endanger the people working near it, so factories limit robots to separate areas to protect their employees from these machines. Heavy industries such as the automobile have already used robotics in product assembly lines, which often have consistent patterns and repetitive processes. Using robots in those processes is really efficient, but robot technology is complex, contains many expensive equipment and requires real experts for programming, maintenance and repair. Due to the above reasons, robots have not appeared in small and medium manufacturing enterprises until now.

Cobot appeared as a brother of industrial robot, more compact and convenient. Advances in technology have brought convenient and affordable small cobots. The average price of cobot is $ 24,000, which makes it a lot easier to invest in this technology for small and medium businesses.

Cobot has become an advantage for small and midsize producers for other reasons as well. Cobot is able to perform repetitive, tedious, polluting and dangerous jobs that help workers spend time and effort on other more difficult jobs and also help them avoid occupational hazards. This helps to reduce labor, overcome the shortage of manpower and solve seasonal problems of the business.

Cobot also speeds up production processes and increases profits for businesses.All Dallas-based Axl Machining has recently had difficulty hiring enough accreditation to operate fabrication machinery and jobs. Other crafts such as metal parts inspection. Only half of their devices remain active after 5 p.m., which affects the number of company orders.

Axl Machining’s managing director, Gary Kuzmin, has invested in buying more cobots from Universal Robots. After implementing these cobots, he thought that it would take months, the results were completed in only half the time compared with the estimate. In an interview with the New York Times, Gary said: “We have seen 60% increase in sales from just that job.”

Productivity and Quality Office