Lifting With Material Handling Robots

Work­ers han­dle mate­ri­als and prod­ucts in the work­place on a dai­ly basis. When lift­ing box­es or oth­er items, they must be care­ful to lift heavy pieces in a spe­cif­ic way to reduce injury. Oth­er prod­ucts are too large, or awk­ward­ly shaped, mak­ing it impos­si­ble to man­u­al­ly lift. These restraints can slow down the lift­ing process, lim­it­ing how much (if any) can be man­u­al­ly lift­ed at one time mak­ing it the per­fect appli­ca­tion for robot­ic mate­r­i­al han­dling.

Some facil­i­ties have fork­lifts or cranes that are oper­at­ed to lift mate­ri­als on a larg­er scale – mate­ri­als that humans could not pos­si­bly lift. Robots are stead­ier than the cables on a crane or the forks on a man­u­al lift­ing vehi­cle. They can also per­form a lift­ing task over and over again with con­sis­tent repeata­bil­i­ty, reduc­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of error. How­ev­er, it is com­mon to see these two dif­fer­ent kinds of lifters work­ing togeth­er in a facil­i­ty. A mate­r­i­al han­dling robot­ic sys­tem can pal­letize items and a man­u­al­ly dri­ven fork­lift can move the pal­let away after it is stacked.

Facil­i­ties that auto­mate with mate­r­i­al han­dling robots for their lift­ing needs reduce user error while increas­ing pro­duc­tion and low­er costs. While many mate­r­i­al han­dling robot­ic arms are not able to lift steel beams weigh­ing thou­sands of pounds like a crane would, some heavy pay­load mate­r­i­al han­dling robots can lift over 500 pounds.

There are also sev­er­al dif­fer­ent grip­per options avail­able. Prod­uct mate­r­i­al type, size, shape, and manip­u­la­tion require­ments will deter­mine the type of grip­per required to com­plete the han­dling task. Some prod­ucts can be very small, large, or odd­ly shaped mak­ing them more dif­fi­cult to man­u­al­ly han­dle. Know­ing there are many options to improve speed and pro­tect work­er safe­ty makes robots a great solu­tion for many companies. 

Robots​.com, can inte­grate mate­r­i­al han­dling robot­ics from man­u­fac­tur­ers like Fanuc, Yaskawa Motoman, ABB, KUKA, and Uni­ver­sal Robots. With over 35 years of expe­ri­ence inte­grat­ing mate­r­i­al han­dling robots, our com­pa­ny is a great choice to help you make edu­cat­ed deci­sions for the most effi­cient and cost-effec­tive solution. 

Con­tact us through our con­tact form or call us at 877−762−6881 for a quick and easy price quote on a mate­r­i­al han­dling robot solution.