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

May 26, 2018

Machine tending can be integrated onto an automation line to further increase productivity, product quality, and overall safety. Machine tending robots can enhance the automation process even further by taking over the tedious and repetitive loading and unloading.

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 8777626881. Learn more about Machine Load­ing Robots.

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