There has been a lot of buzz in the marketplace regarding collaborative robotics but why?
Robots have been a topic of conversation for a long time now but never like this.
Here a few perspectives we are the RG Group are seeing from our customer base:
SAFETY:
A traditional industrial robot requires heavy amounts of caging, and safety add-ons. This presents additional cost and risk for the end user of a robot. A collaborative robot on the other hand is inherently safe. ISO/TS 15066 guidelines on safety lists four types of collaborative operation:
- Safety rated monitored stop
- Hand guiding
- Speed and separation monitoring
- Power and force limiting
Rethink Robotics Sawyer has technology baked into its product to address everyone one of these areas.
PAYBACK PERIOD:
The payback period/industry average for a typical collaborative robot in the right application is only 156 days. In some cases, it’s even less. Compared to most capital equipment expenditures that are staggering. For large hydraulic systems, we see payback periods as long as 1095 days. The economics behind the Cobot space, in particular, are mind-boggling.
LABOR SHORTAGE:
The April jobs report had unemployment at 4.4% which is the lowest we have seen in a decade. More importantly for manufacturing the question is: what type of labor? With millennials coming on the scene as the primary source of labor not many people in that segment are interested in mundane, repetitive tasks. So for a small, privately held manufacturing company it might be hard to replace the CNC tender that’s been with you for 35 years. Why not purchase a robot instead? This is also a surprising, but a huge driver of growth.
FLEXIBILITY & RAPID DEPLOYMENT:
Would you believe me if I told you that you that you could program a robot to do a simple task in less than an hour? With no engineering background what so ever? Probably not. Well it’s true. I can tell you first hand that working with collaborative robots is easy and is only going to get easier. As a result of this manufacturers no longer have to worry about buying robot and hiring talent to make it work. They just have to buy the robot and train existing employees.
In summary, replacing people is not the only reason people are buying collaborative robots.
There are much deeper more influential trends than labor cost reduction that have brought us to this tipping point.
SMART ROBOTIC TECHNOLOGY
Are you ready to revolutionize your industry? Utilizing a collaborative robot from Rethink Robotics can assist you in automating processes like machine tending, fabrication, pick and place, packaging, and so much more. Even deploying a single collaborative robot will modernize and optimize your production processes, helping you to compete in an increasingly global marketplace.