Enhance Automation and Fill in the Skills Gap with Machine Tending Robots

Improv­ing an exist­ing auto­mat­ed pro­duc­tion line with robot­ic machine tend­ing can help a com­pa­ny stay com­pet­i­tive on a glob­al scale while also help­ing to fill the skills gap in automation. 

What is Machine Tending?

Typ­i­cal automa­tion sys­tems require a work­er to load or unload, con­trol­ling the over­all pace. Machine tend­ing is when robots load raw mate­r­i­al, the machine exe­cutes its pro­gram, and then the robot takes the fin­ished part out and loads the machine as often as nec­es­sary. This is dif­fer­ent from mate­r­i­al han­dling as tend­ing is more com­plex as there is con­stant com­mu­ni­ca­tion with a CNC machine and the per­for­mance of a few dif­fer­ent functions.

Ben­e­fits of Machine Tending

Robot­ic machine tend­ing can dras­ti­cal­ly improve upti­mes, accu­ra­cy, and repeata­bil­i­ty when com­pared to man­u­al load­ing and unload­ing of spe­cif­ic process­es or appli­ca­tions. The exchange of parts by a robot can be accom­plished more pre­cise­ly and faster than an oper­a­tor, result­ing in increased machine utilization.

Auto­mat­ed machine tend­ing can also improve safe­ty and reduce over­all errors pro­vid­ing reduced down­time, min­i­mized waste, and increased through­put. The robot will need to stop peri­od­i­cal­ly for reg­u­lar main­te­nance how­ev­er it still has an over­all high­er up-time than man­u­al labor by being able to con­tin­ue to boost through­put. Oper­at­ing costs can be low­ered and space can be saved as these robots help to advance your automa­tion process. 

When a robot is used to tend machines, employ­ees can be relieved of repet­i­tive and dirty work. This allows com­pa­nies to use their employ­ees for a deep­er val­ue on their pro­duc­tion line. For those that can’t find employ­ees to do the nec­es­sary work, then the machine tend­ing robots are ready to step in and get the work done! 

Flex­i­bil­i­ty with Machine Tending 

There is a robot tend­ing solu­tion for every con­ceiv­able pro­duc­tion sce­nario. Machine tend­ing robots can be adapt­ed to more than one type of piece with flex­i­ble robot grip­pers. They also can be installed over­head and serve two machines at a time. Machine tend­ing can be used for load­ing and unload­ing parts for grind­ing, milling and turn­ing, injec­tion molds, stamp­ing, punch­ing, trim­ming, and forg­ing, com­pres­sion molds, and welding. 

Fill­ing in the Skills Gap with Machine Tending

The man­u­fac­tur­ing busi­ness in the Unit­ed States is boom­ing with an addi­tion­al 24,000 jobs list­ed in April 2018 alone by the Bureau of Labor Sta­tis­tics. How­ev­er, the nec­es­sary work that is need­ed dur­ing this boom is imbal­anced as there is a lack of skilled labor avail­able to get it done. Enter machine tending. 

Machine tend­ing can accom­plish the load­ing and unload­ing on your pro­duc­tion line with­out rely­ing on some­one not yet trained to come fill the job. The skills gap is being addressed with the push for increased man­u­fac­tur­ing edu­ca­tion nec­es­sary to meet the grow­ing chal­lenge. In the mean­time, machine tend­ing robots are ready to get the job done quick­ly and effectively.

Con­tact Robots​.com Experts Today!

It is now easy to see that almost any man­u­al or pre-exist­ing auto­mat­ed task can be advanced with machine tend­ing. The pro­duc­tion speeds, flex­i­bil­i­ty, qual­i­ty, and con­sis­ten­cy can be increased with the inte­gra­tion of a machine tend­ing robot on your pro­duc­tion line.

Robots​.com experts have over twen­ty five years of man­u­fac­tur­ing expe­ri­ence and look for­ward to guid­ing you to the per­fect automa­tion solu­tion. For more infor­ma­tion on torch mounts, con­tact the rep­re­sen­ta­tives at Robots​.com online or at 877−762−6881.