Finding A Robot For A Small Business

While the major­i­ty of robot users are the auto­mo­tive, elec­tron­ics, and con­sumer goods man­u­fac­tur­ers, small busi­ness­es rep­re­sent a grow­ing seg­ment of the robot mar­ket. Per­haps sur­pris­ing­ly, 95% of Motoman’s cus­tomers have five robots or less. Enter­pris­es with few­er than 100 employ­ees and less than 10 robots are con­sid­ered ​“small busi­ness­es,” and they face unique chal­lenges when invest­ing in robots. 

Since small­er com­pa­nies typ­i­cal­ly have a small­er range of prod­ucts and a more pre­cise appli­ca­tion, they don’t have as much oppor­tu­ni­ty to diver­si­fy their appli­ca­tions. But if the own­ers stay informed, they can under­stand the flex­i­bil­i­ty of their sys­tem and how the robot can be used to meet future needs as well as cur­rent needs. It is impor­tant for the com­pa­ny to have flex­i­ble automa­tion that can be set up quick­ly and switched to anoth­er prod­uct line if necessary. 

A chal­lenge for a small busi­ness is the per­ceived need to hire a robot spe­cial­ist who can repro­gram the robot for new prod­ucts when the time comes as well as fix tech­ni­cal issues. In real­i­ty, most robot­ic sys­tems are extreme­ly user-friend­ly. Robot man­u­fac­tur­ers go to great lengths to make pro­gram­ming, oper­at­ing, and main­tain­ing robots sim­ple. Also, robot inte­gra­tors offer train­ing so that all cus­tomers, regard­less of busi­ness size, can per­form main­te­nance and pro­gram­ming on their own.

Anoth­er chal­lenge is the cost of the robot and nec­es­sary equip­ment. How­ev­er, as prices decline, robots become afford­able to small busi­ness own­ers. Leas­ing robots or buy­ing refur­bished robots are oth­er alter­na­tives to keep costs down. Fur­ther, robots elim­i­nate wast­ed time, and com­mit few­er errors, which end up sav­ing money. 

The invest­ment in robot­ics is a daunt­ing num­ber to some small enter­pris­es, but the return on invest­ment is usu­al­ly less than two years. Reduced labor costs, decreased health insur­ance ben­e­fits, reduced con­sum­ables, and increased pro­duc­tion speed are crucial. 

Using robots for small lots is ben­e­fi­cial, which some small busi­ness own­ers don’t real­ize. Robots allow flex­i­bil­i­ty for small runs where the demand for pro­duc­tion increas­es. Robots can han­dle mul­ti­ple SKUs in case load­ing or up to 146 dif­fer­ent parts in machine tend­ing appli­ca­tions. Offline pro­gram­ming also allows the robots to con­tin­ue run­ning while the own­er pre­pares for new jobs.

The most com­mon­ly used appli­ca­tions for small com­pa­nies are case pack­ag­ing/pal­letiz­ing, mate­r­i­al han­dling, weld­ing, and assem­bly. Sea­son­al pro­duc­tion also ben­e­fits from robot­ics, as their work cells have tool­ing that is only used when necessary.

So, as you can see, small busi­ness­es can ben­e­fit from robots. A great way to incor­po­rate an indus­tri­al robot with less cap­i­tal mon­ey is buy­ing a com­plete­ly refur­bished refur­bished robot. Robots​.com spe­cial­izes in refur­bish­ing robots to work as good as new and are able to sell them for a reduced price. Our com­pa­ny pro­vides sup­port and train­ing with every robot we sell, which is the per­fect route for most small busi­ness­es. Call us today for more infor­ma­tion or price quote at 877−762−6881 or con­tact rep­re­sen­ta­tives online.