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.

In eigener Sache/ Werbung
Der Autor dieses Blogs ist gelisteter Bafa-Berater (Bundesbehörde). Die Bafa finanziert seit dem 03.04. von durch Corona in Schwierigkeiten geratene Unternehmen Beratung zu 100% bzw. bis 4.000 € netto. Aus der Betriebswirtschaft kommend, besteht eine hundertfache Erfahrung in der Ermittlung des Liquiditätsbedarf und der Darstellung der Kapitaldienstfähigkeit. Ab 2015 kam die Robotik hinzu. Daher ist eine vom Staat finanzierte „Doppel-Beratung“ (Finanzierung & Robotik) – auch am Telefon – jetzt möglich. Alternativ auch eine „Einzel-Beratung“. Der Staat bezahlt sie. Details und Links finden Sie hier.

Das Standardbuch „Einführung in die Mensch-Roboter-Kollaboration“ stammt ebenfalls aus seiner Feder.