Robot Savings Time

Mar 11, 2017

Robots can provide any manufacturing line with constant work, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Industrial robots do not need breaks or vacation, they can work continuously and extremely effectively. Industrial robots will help your production line save time and money, while adding great value and quality to your final product.

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Robots can work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 52 weeks a year, with­out need­ing breaks or that extra hour of sleep we are all dream­ing about. Whether we were ready or not, Day­light Sav­ings Time has sprung and we are remind­ed of the val­ue of one of our most sacred com­modi­ties: time. 

For­tu­nate­ly, robots aren’t affect­ed by Day­light Sav­ings Time and will con­tin­ue to func­tion at work much more effec­tive­ly than us humans, who are dream­ing of that extra hour of sleep. They will con­tin­ue to offer their count­less ben­e­fits on the pro­duc­tion line, includ­ing the most pre­cious com­mod­i­ty, time sav­ings. Time trans­lates direct­ly to mon­ey on the pro­duc­tion line.

Ron Pot­ter, Direc­tor of Robot­ics Tech­nol­o­gy for Fac­to­ry Automa­tion Sys­tems, Inc. in Atlanta, Geor­gia, gives the per­fect exam­ple. An appli­ca­tion we’ve had in oper­a­tion for sev­er­al years is for a sup­pli­er of parts to agri­cul­tur­al equip­ment man­u­fac­tur­ers has result­ed in a 150 per­cent increase in pro­duc­tiv­i­ty by hav­ing the robot do what three peo­ple were doing before. Now, they are accom­plish­ing in 3 hours what used to take them 8 hours with man­u­al oper­a­tions. They are load­ing and unload­ing machine tools with a robot. The machine tools are locat­ed back-to-back with the robot mount­ed over­head in the mid­dle. We’ve intro­duced debur­ring into the cell, auto­mat­ic gaug­ing, auto­mat­ic tool com­pen­sa­tion, and auto­mat­ic pin stamp­ing. So all of these oper­a­tions that occurred with work-in-progress inven­to­ry are now done in one cell. It actu­al­ly runs unmanned dur­ing the third shift. They’ve had a huge increase in pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and of course that impacts their return on invest­ment,” adds Pot­ter (1).

Indus­tri­al robots are tru­ly kings of bring­ing time sav­ings on the pro­duc­tion line, mak­ing them worth every pen­ny of the ini­tial invest­ment. They are, and will con­tin­ue to be, experts in offer­ing con­sis­ten­cy, pre­ci­sion, effi­cien­cy, and improve­ment of the prod­uct qual­i­ty to the pro­duc­tion line. Any robot or tool that can cut down a job to some­thing seem­ing­ly small, such as a frac­tion of a sec­ond, will make a huge dif­fer­ence and direct­ly trans­late into dol­lars. There are a vari­ety of robots that also offer ener­gy sav­ings options. 

Robot­ics also are able to help avoid waste with their extreme amounts of pre­ci­sion, result­ing in few­er mis­takes, a safer work­place, and ulti­mate­ly, increased total pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. If the ini­tial cost invest­ment is wor­ri­some to you, you must real­ize that com­pa­nies typ­i­cal­ly recov­er quick­ly from the ini­tial cost. As seen below, indus­tri­al robots offer a quick ROI from all of the afore­men­tioned benefits.

Pos­i­tive cash flow over course of robot­ic system’s ser­vice life (Cour­tesy of Fac­to­ry Automa­tion Sys­tems, Inc.)

Anoth­er exam­ple of an auto­mat­ed sys­tem that brought huge val­ue was seen at Men­nie’s Machine Com­pa­ny. Men­nie’s man­u­fac­tures dri­ve shaft com­po­nents for full-sized trucks and sport util­i­ty vehi­cles. They had a 118 pro­duc­tion goal per hour, but were only reach­ing 80 pieces per hour due to bot­tle­necks in their man­u­al sys­tem. Men­nie’s decid­ed to auto­mate and Fanuc Robot­ics designed a fac­to­ry with­in a fac­to­ry,” incor­po­rat­ing mate­r­i­al han­dling robot mod­els equipped with Han­dling­Tool™ and Col­li­sion Guard™ soft­ware, cus­tomer grip­pers, and a con­trol inter­face. Since the install, scrap rates have declined and the three-shift oper­a­tion has increased 15%, run­ning at 95% up-time. Fur­ther­more, total pro­duc­tion costs have been increased by 25% and is flex­i­ble enough to accom­mo­date addi­tion­al machines. Men­nie’s has been very sat­is­fied with the accu­ra­cy, con­sis­ten­cy, and part defect reduc­tion. The sys­tem is now pro­duc­ing around 120 pieces per hour. 

After look­ing at the facts and real life exam­ples above, it can­not be denied that indus­tri­al robots are flex­i­ble, dynam­ic, and super pro­duc­tive machines. Tech­nol­o­gy has pro­vid­ed an indus­tri­al robot that can tack­le almost any task, from small or large pay­loads, with ease. Every job it tack­les helps to increase a company’s over­all pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, bring a quick ROI, and offer huge time sav­ings options. 

For more ques­tions about robots or robot­ic sys­tems, con­tact Robots​.com experts online or at 8777626881.

Sources:

(1)http://​www​.robot​ics​.org/​c​o​n​t​e​n​t​-​d​e​t​a​i​l​.​c​f​m​/​I​n​d​u​s​t​r​i​a​l​-​R​o​b​o​t​i​c​s​-​I​n​d​u​s​t​r​y​-​I​n​s​i​g​h​t​s​/​C​a​l​c​u​l​a​t​i​n​g​-​Y​o​u​r​-​R​O​I​-​f​o​r​-​R​o​b​o​t​i​c​-​A​u​t​o​m​a​t​i​o​n​-​C​o​s​t​-​v​s​-​C​a​s​h​-​F​l​o​w​/​c​o​n​t​e​n​t​_​i​d​/5285

(2)http://​www​.pro​duc​tiv​i​ty​.com/​w​p​-​c​o​n​t​e​n​t​/​u​p​l​o​a​d​s​/​2015​/​04​/​A​r​t​i​c​l​e​-​R​o​b​o​t​i​c​s​-​a​n​d​-​A​u​t​o​m​a​t​i​o​n​-​C​a​n​-​S​a​v​e​-​Y​o​u​r​-​F​a​c​t​o​r​y.pdf

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