Why cobots maintain the important thing to unlocking operational effectivity in giant producers

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UR cobots on the Peugeot meeting plant in France. | Supply: Teradyne

My LinkedIn inbox has been busier than typical over the past couple of weeks, since I shared an opinion piece in Forbes titled “The Reinvention of the Manufacturing Business,” exploring how a brand new era of superior robotics helps to democratize manufacturing, making robots inexpensive for firms of all sizes.

A number of of my skilled contacts have reached out to ask: Are collaborative robots actually only for small and medium-sized firms then? We all know this isn’t true, and so I want to supply some additional clarification.

Because the inception of mechanization and mass-production processes at first of the final century, the instruments giant producers have used to drive competitiveness and effectivity have been geared in the direction of utilizing dimension as a bonus — economies of scale, giant industrial robots for high-volume low-mix duties, giant budgets to fund effectivity applications like lean and 6 sigma, and the power to outsource labor at scale to anyplace with ease.

Nonetheless, these levers designed for large firms didn’t work for smaller companies. That’s why “new age” robotics, led by collaborative robots and autonomous cell robots (AMRs), has been a recreation changer for a lot of small to midsize enterprises. However it’s not the place the cobot story ends. Or satirically, even started.

For the massive producers, aggressive stress drove want for differentiation, which elevated product variations. You possibly can really feel that on each one among their meeting traces right this moment.

However a number of giant producers are nonetheless caught with the previous instruments designed for low-mix, high-volume manufacturing on this new actuality, the place every of their factories and warehouses have more and more high-mix and smaller batch sizes. Producers are more and more utilizing superior applied sciences like cobots and AMRs to make their operations nimbler and extra versatile whereas dashing up time to market.

The origin of the cobot

Few individuals right this moment understand that collaborative robots had been first designed with giant firms in thoughts.

The founders of Common Robots (UR) examined companies already utilizing industrial robots and set themselves the problem of making one thing that was extra simply reprogrammable for various features throughout manufacturing unit flooring. With the competitors that producers face right this moment, the necessity for product variations for differentiation issues vastly That feeling is palpable after I stroll their meeting line.

The answer that UR got here up with? The world’s first commercially viable cobot – a toddler of two separate college analysis tasks.

The primary mission sought to create a toy robotic really easy to program {that a} little one might do it in half an hour.

The second mission centered on the wants of the meals trade in Denmark, which on the time was in search of a extra versatile strategy to automation that might permit manufacturing unit staff to reconfigure manufacturing traces to accommodate new merchandise. Engineers that attempted to construct that flexibility into conventional industrial robots received nowhere – it was merely unimaginable for staff on the manufacturing unit ground to discover ways to reprogram the know-how that existed.

The above tasks got here collectively, and the remaining, as they are saying, is historical past. The end result was an simply programable, extremely versatile robotic.

The usage of cobots in giant organizations right this moment

The worldwide marketplace for collaborative robots was anticipated to hit $1.6 billion on the finish of 2023, with a compound annual development charge of 26% to 2026, as predicted by Analysis and Markets. It attributed this improve to an increase in good factories and rising demand within the Asia-Pacific area.

Whereas it’s true that cobots are democratizing robotics, they’ve all the time been of nice use to giant firms. However I consider that enormous producers are but to totally embrace the capabilities they provide.

Strong financial drivers for elevated uptake are current, together with labor and abilities shortages, as current analysis suggests giant firms have the tallest hill to climb in terms of worker retention.

It’s no surprise that many giant firms – together with main world companies like Siemens, Toyota, and Novo Nordisk – have absolutely built-in cobot know-how to make their operations extra nimble.

The time has now come for the trade to do that throughout the board. In a aggressive world, giant firms haven’t any alternative however to extend agility at each flip. Decelerate, they usually threat falling foul to extra nimble competitors.

New-age robotics provides better effectivity and pace to market, and enterprises have to board this practice right this moment or threat getting left behind on the platform.

The combination of cobots and industrial automation

Right here too, it’s actually thrilling to witness how collaborative robots are actually working with conventional industrial robots.

Retrofitting a manufacturing line with cobots tends to be pretty simple, partly due to the system’s small footprint. Deeper integration between cobots and conventional industrial robots can also be now typically doable via the programmable logic controller (PLC).

However a lot extra may be accomplished. The potential alternatives awaiting giant gamers in 2024 are colossal, and I can’t wait to see extra embracing an all-encompassing automation course of in manufacturing, positioning cobots to extend productiveness, product high quality, and security.

Trying to the long run: AI-enabled cobots and extra subtle purposes

As machine studying and AI-enabled cobot purposes develop into extra broadly accessible, bigger companies are completely positioned to leverage this cutting-edge tech to help their complicated and complex enterprise wants. From high quality inspection utilizing laptop imaginative and prescient to dealing with high-mix purposes on the manufacturing ground, I see firms utilizing cobots to enhance prices and improve buyer satisfaction.

Cobots have develop into user-friendly sufficient for even the smallest companies, serving to to democratize manufacturing. However they’re additionally being paired with among the world’s most subtle applied sciences, supporting global-scale firms in changing into extra productive than ever.

Concerning the creator

Ujjwal Kumar is group president of Teradyne Robotics. Over his 25-plus-year profession, Kumar has efficiently scaled companies at main multinationals together with Common Motors, Common Electrical, and Honeywell.

Kumar can be giving a keynote presentation on the Robotics Summit & Expo subsequent week. In it, he’ll share some classes he has discovered and the way they are often utilized to speed up the transformation of trade with robotics. Registration is now open for the occasion, which can be on Could 1 and a pair of on the Boston Conference and Exhibition Middle.

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