Extensive cobot use in manufacturing

While many a new cobot manufacturer has mainly teaching and research institutions (universities) as customers and can hardly name any industrial references, established suppliers such as Universal Robots, Omron, Doosan or Fanuc are traditionally also at home in companies.

Universal Robots has a special reference with thyssenkrupp Bildstein, an American manufacturer of landing gear components. The company suffered from labor shortages in its area before Corona. Growth was therefore only possible through automation of machine operation and loading and product inspection. The nine cobots deployed in the summer of 2019 were subsequently to be augmented by 40 additional cobots. While manufacturing volumes are likely to have fallen since Corona, cost pressures are likely to have increased. This is because even if the company is still achieving the old prices as a result of longer-running contracts, the fixed costs now have to be borne by lower unit volumes. At the same time, the use of cobots has improved ergonomics and increased flexibility. The flexibility in several respects: Smaller batch size (easier programming) as well as mobility of the cobots (mounted on trolleys they can be moved quickly to the next place of operation). These are all well-known reasons in favor of cobots, but they cannot be repeated often enough. After all, only 5% of SMEs that could use cobots actually do.

In the video you can also see the interaction of two cobots.

If the company were to actually buy another 40 cobots, it would have a serious problem: Since each cobot is named after a president (clever solution to distinguish them), it would need 49 presidents. But the U.S. has only had 45 so far, perhaps another reason against Trump's re-election.

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The author of this blog is a listed Bafa consultant (federal agency). The Bafa finances since 03.04. of by Corona in difficulty companies consulting to 100% or up to 4,000 € net. Coming from the business administration, there is a hundredfold experience in the determination of the liquidity needs and the presentation of the debt service ability. From 2015, robotics was added. Therefore, a state-funded "double consulting" (financing & robotics) - also on the phone - is now possible. Alternatively, "one-on-one" counseling. The state pays for it. Details and links can be found here.

The standard book "Introduction to Human-Robot Collaboration" was also written by him.