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![UR Robots at the Peugeot assembly plant in France.](https://www.therobotreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/teradyne-featured.jpg)
UR cobots on the Peugeot meeting plant in France. | Supply: Teradyne
My LinkedIn inbox has been busier than ordinary during the last couple of weeks, since I shared an opinion piece in Forbes titled “The Reinvention of the Manufacturing Trade,” exploring how a brand new technology of superior robotics helps to democratize manufacturing, making robots inexpensive for corporations 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 corporations then? We all know this isn’t true, and so I want to supply some additional rationalization.
For the reason that inception of mechanization and mass-production processes initially of the final century, the instruments massive producers have used to drive competitiveness and effectivity have been geared in the direction of utilizing dimension as a bonus — economies of scale, massive industrial robots for high-volume low-mix duties, massive budgets to fund effectivity packages like lean and 6 sigma, and the flexibility to outsource labor at scale to wherever with ease.
Nevertheless, these levers designed for giant corporations didn’t work for smaller companies. That’s why “new age” robotics, led by collaborative robots and autonomous cell robots (AMRs), has been a sport changer for a lot of small to midsize enterprises. However it’s not the place the cobot story ends. Or paradoxically, even started.
For the big producers, aggressive stress drove want for differentiation, which elevated product variations. You’ll be able to really feel that on each certainly one of their meeting strains at present.
However a number of massive producers are nonetheless caught with the outdated instruments designed for low-mix, high-volume manufacturing on this new actuality, the place every of their factories and warehouses have more and more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 folks at present understand that collaborative robots had been first designed with massive corporations 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 capabilities throughout manufacturing unit flooring. With the competitors that producers face at present, the necessity for product variations for differentiation issues vastly That feeling is palpable once 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 initiatives.
The primary mission sought to create a toy robotic really easy to program {that a} youngster might do it in half an hour.
The second mission targeted on the wants of the meals trade in Denmark, which on the time was searching for a extra versatile strategy to automation that will enable manufacturing unit staff to reconfigure manufacturing strains to accommodate new merchandise. Engineers that attempted to construct that flexibility into conventional industrial robots received nowhere – it was merely not possible for staff on the manufacturing unit flooring to discover ways to reprogram the expertise that existed.
The above initiatives got here collectively, and the remainder, as they are saying, is historical past. The consequence was an simply programable, extremely versatile robotic.
Using cobots in massive organizations at present
The worldwide marketplace for collaborative robots was anticipated to hit $1.6 billion on the finish of 2023, with a compound annual development price of 26% to 2026, as predicted by Analysis and Markets. It attributed this improve to an increase in sensible 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 massive corporations. However I consider that giant producers are but to totally embrace the capabilities they provide.
Strong financial drivers for elevated uptake are current, together with labor and expertise shortages, as current analysis suggests massive corporations have the tallest hill to climb in relation to worker retention.
It’s no surprise that many massive corporations – together with main world companies like Siemens, Toyota, and Novo Nordisk – have totally built-in cobot expertise to make their operations extra nimble.
The time has now come for the trade to do that throughout the board. In a aggressive world, massive corporations haven’t any alternative however to extend agility at each flip. Decelerate, and so they threat falling foul to extra nimble competitors.
New-age robotics affords larger effectivity and pace to market, and enterprises must board this prepare at present 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 usually potential by way of the programmable logic controller (PLC).
However a lot extra might be performed. The potential alternatives awaiting massive 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.
Seeking to the long run: AI-enabled cobots and extra subtle functions
As machine studying and AI-enabled cobot functions grow to be extra extensively obtainable, bigger companies are completely positioned to leverage this cutting-edge tech to help their complicated and complex enterprise wants. From high quality inspection utilizing pc imaginative and prescient to dealing with high-mix functions on the manufacturing flooring, I see corporations utilizing cobots to enhance prices and improve buyer satisfaction.
Cobots have grow to be 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 corporations in turning into extra productive than ever.
In regards to the writer
Ujjwal Kumar is group president of Teradyne Robotics. Over his 25-plus-year profession, Kumar has efficiently scaled companies at main multinationals together with Normal Motors, Normal Electrical, and Honeywell.
Kumar shall 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 shall be on Might 1 and a pair of on the Boston Conference and Exhibition Heart.
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