Your new robot colleague – coming out of its cage Next-gen, new-gen, co-worker – call it what you may, a robotics revolution is rolling into manufacturing, warehousing, materials handling, and supply chains worldwide When asked how they envision a robot, most people either think of huge, unwieldy robots working in fenced-off areas in large factories, or they think of futuristic cyberbots mimicking human behavior. But somewhere between these two scenarios lies an emerging reality: a new class of robots, dubbed collaborative robots due to their ability to work directly alongside employees with no safety caging. These kinds of co-bots are poised to bridge the gap between fully manual assembly and fully automated manufacturing lines. Nowhere is that more obvious than in the small and medium businesses sector, that up until now viewed robot automation as too costly and complex to consider. Unlike their big brothers working behind glass at automobile plants and other big assembly lines, collaborative robots are lightweight and flexible. They can easily be moved and reprogrammed to solve new tasks, meeting the short-run production challenge faced by companies adjusting to ever more advanced processing in smaller batch sizes. The automotive sector still comprises roughly 65 percent of all robot sales in the U.S. However, the Robotic Industries Association quotes observers who believe only 10 percent of companies that could benefit from robots have installed any so far.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 08:00:53 +0000
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