DIGITALISATION
RISING TRENDS IN THE ADOPTION OF
COLLABORATIVE AUTOMATION by James McKew, Regional Director Asia-Pacific, Universal Robots Advantages include competitive costs, rapid payback, and ease of deployment.
Mr James McKew
More factories than ever before now rely on robots to help relieve human workers from tedious and dangerous tasks, ensure product quality with repetitive tasks, and improve overall productivity. In 2020, the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) estimated that 2.7 million industrial robots are currently deployed around the globe. The IFR also reported that collaborative robots (cobots) have overtaken traditional robots in terms of growth, growing up to four times faster in 2019.
Leveraging HMLV production In the past decade, the manufacturing sector has seen a considerable shift away from mass production towards high-mix/low-volume (HMLV) production batches.
Hyundae Induction Hardening Heat Treatment (HIHHT), from South Korea, deployed two UR10 cobots in its induction hardening heattreatment process. The UR10 cobots helped free human labour from simple repetitive tasks, allowing flexible labour re-allocations.
Universal Robots (UR) supports this trend towards customised manufacturing by providing manufacturers with versatile collaborative robots that are easy to program, making it easy to accommodate short production runs. Cobots are versatile and flexible, making them ideally suited to HMLV manufacturing environments. UR cobots can be deployed on a wide variety of applications, including assembly, dispensing, finishing, machine tending, material handling, material removal, quality inspection, and welding. The UR+ ecosystem builds on this flexibility by providing a range of software and hardware components, from end-of-arm tooling to vision systems and inspection and palletising kits, designed to provide manufacturers with all tools needed to quickly set up a specialised automation project. Additionally, following a risk assessment, cobots can be deployed safely next to human workers without the need for safety cages or fences, which further facilitates quick and easy deployments. Hyundae Induction Hardening Heat Treatment (HIHHT) from South Korea deployed two UR10 cobots in its HMLV manufacturing facility. As a result, the production failure rate decreased from 0.03% to 0.01% and overall production efficiency increased by 31%. By automating repetitive processes, the company was able to hire two additional employees.
Filling the labour shortages gap Driven by difficulties finding manual labour, automotive component manufacturer Craft and Technik Industries 26
THE SINGAPORE ENGINEER June 2021
Craft and Technik Industries (CATI) in India deployed UR cobots for automatic inspection and CNC machine tending tasks.
(CATI) in India deployed UR cobots for automatic inspection and CNC machine tending tasks. As a result, efficiency at the SME has increased, with production volume going up between 15% and 20%, with zero defects or customer rejections. “We talk about unemployment all over the country but the truth with the SME sector is that we actually cannot find enough qualified labour. Hence, the best combination for us is incorporating robots in our manufacturing, alongside human workers. Smartly combining the number of machines and robots ensures that the payback period will be faster. The time has come for SMEs to automate - robots are no longer the prerogative of large-scale industries only”, said Mr Prashant Shantaram Umbrani, CEO of CATI.
