Selecting a Proper Robot

Choos­ing to auto­mate a shop or pro­duc­tion line with robots is a deci­sion that should be made enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly, yet thought­ful­ly. Robots can boost pro­duc­tion, improve part han­dling, and free work­ers from back­break­ing and expen­sive man­u­al labor.

There are sev­er­al con­sid­er­a­tions in select­ing a robot, the first being to deter­mine what exact­ly the robot will do. Next, the pay­load that the robot will need to lift must be estab­lished. One cau­tion with pay­load is to be sure to fac­tor in the weight of the end-of-arm-tool­ing (EOAT) in the total pay­load con­sid­er­a­tion. End-of-arm-tool­ing can include imple­ments like grip­pers, vac­u­um grips, welders, or drills. Then the space the robot will work in needs to be con­sid­ered. This includes both how far the robot needs to reach and what its range-of-motion needs to be to effec­tive­ly do the job. Based on that infor­ma­tion, it will be clear if the shop has enough space to accom­mo­date the nec­es­sary robot range-of-motion.

Once the spec­i­fi­ca­tions of appli­ca­tion, reach, foot­print, and pay­load are defined, the poten­tial robot buy­er must con­sid­er bud­get. Bud­get lim­its will define what robot man­u­fac­tur­er to shop for as well as whether a new or refur­bished refur­bished robot should be considered.

A good exam­ple of how to choose the right robot(s) is the Men­nie Machine Com­pa­ny of Mark, Illi­nois. The Men­nie Machine Com­pa­ny spe­cial­izes in high qual­i­ty machined cast­ings and forg­ings for the auto­mo­tive and con­struc­tion mar­ket. Mennie’s deci­sion to auto­mate its pro­duc­tion took into account the fact that it had rel­a­tive­ly heavy and awk­ward parts that are ide­al can­di­dates for automation.

In select­ing a robot type, Mennie’s had to con­sid­er sev­er­al fac­tors. First, they had to deter­mine how far the robots need­ed to reach, how they need­ed to move, and what they had to pick up or han­dle. Sec­ond, they had to deter­mine if they had the space for the robots to be able to move and if they could even be mount­ed in the way that Mennie’s need­ed. Last­ly, they had to deter­mine what kind of dex­ter­i­ty and grip­per type the robots need­ed to have to appro­pri­ate­ly han­dle the parts. With all of these fac­tors con­sid­ered, Mennie’s select­ed the Fanuc M‑6i, M‑16i, S‑430iFand LR Mate 100i.

The Men­nie Machine Com­pa­ny was able to choose the right robot to auto­mate sev­er­al com­plex process­es from drilling, to heat-treat­ing, and grind­ing. Mennie’s robot selec­tion was effec­tive because it con­sid­ered what kind of part each Fanuc robot would need to be work­ing with and made sure to select the right robot with enough grip­ping or machin­ing attach­ment options to assure the job could be done. In Mennie’s process, the M‑6i and M‑16i robots, capa­ble of lift­ing 13.2 lbs and 35 lbs respec­tive­ly, pri­mar­i­ly load and unload met­al parts into a series of dif­fer­ent lath­es, drillers and rollers. The S‑430iF, capa­ble of lift­ing 286 lbs, then sequen­tial­ly loads and unloads pal­lets of the parts into and out of four machines that per­form var­i­ous groove and ream operations.

Mennie’s also made sure the robot cells would be eas­i­ly acces­si­ble by fork trucks or con­vey­ors for prod­uct move­ment and for robot main­te­nance. Over­all, Mennie’s was able to increase its machine uptime by 15% and cut pro­duc­tion costs by 25% because they chose the right robots for their pro­duc­tion line. Clear­ly, once the deci­sion to auto­mate a shop is made, the most impor­tant thing is select­ing the prop­er robot(s) to accom­plish the task at hand.

For more infor­ma­tion on choos­ing the right robot, con­tact Robots​.com rep­re­sen­ta­tives online or at 877−762−6881.