Steps to building the perfect robotic workcell

So, you’ve seen those amaz­ing robot­ic work­cells that build car parts, machine pieces and sev­er­al oth­er con­sumer goods. You’ve decid­ed you want that kind of inno­va­tion and improve­ment in your own pro­duc­tion line. But, then you hit a dead end. Where do you start?

Well, there are a few key pieces to a robot work­cell that have to be decid­ed on before the build­ing process can begin. You should try to fig­ure out what appli­ca­tion you want your robot work­cell to per­form and what mate­ri­als you want to use. Then, once that has been decid­ed, it is a mat­ter of con­sid­er­ing what equip­ment you want – robot, posi­tion­er, safe­ty pack­age, end-of-arm-tool­ing – and whether you want it new or refurbished.

So – let’s get started!

First, what appli­ca­tion do you want your robot work­cell to per­form? This is impor­tant when deter­min­ing what kind of robot you will need. Whether you are per­form­ing a weld­ing, mate­r­i­al han­dling, mate­r­i­al removal or some oth­er appli­ca­tion will help nar­row down your robot search.

Once you decide on the appli­ca­tion, then you must con­sid­er your product’s mate­ri­als. Will you need to han­dle mate­ri­als like flat panes of glass? Will your robot­ic work­cell need a weld­ing pack­age to weld dif­fer­ent work pieces? All these things come into play when design­ing your workcell.

Now, onto the equip­ment. After you decide whether your bud­get can han­dle a refur­bished or new sys­tem, you will move on to choos­ing your robot. There are sev­er­al dif­fer­ent robot­ics com­pa­nies that have robot mod­els on the mar­ket today. Three of the largest in the indus­try are Fanuc, Motoman, and KUKA. These com­pa­nies offer sev­er­al dif­fer­ent mod­els for a large vari­ety of weld­ing, mate­r­i­al han­dling and mate­r­i­al removal needs.

After the robot is decid­ed, the posi­tion­er is the next key piece in the sys­tem. A posi­tion­er can be a turntable that will rotate a piece in and out of the robot’s work zone for weld­ing or mate­r­i­al removal pur­pos­es, or it can be a fer­ris wheel posi­tion­er that moves objects in a dif­fer­ent motion. Even anoth­er robot can be a posi­tion­er, espe­cial­ly in mate­r­i­al han­dling applications.

Then, you have to con­sid­er your safe­ty options. Do you need light cur­tains? Do you want alarms, emer­gency stop? All of these sen­sors are impor­tant to keep­ing work­ers safe and away from the robot workcell’s work zone while the robot is in operation.

It all sounds a bit daunt­ing, doesn’t it? Well, luck­i­ly, Robots​.com, a cer­ti­fied inte­gra­tor for Fanuc, Motoman, ABB, Uni­ver­sal Robots, and KUKA robot­ics, is avail­able to help you with all the lay­out, design and build­ing needs for your robot­ic workcell.

You can work with Robots​.com’ staff of tal­ent­ed engi­neers, tech­ni­cians and sales­men to design and build the per­fect robot­ic work­cell that will work per­fect­ly for your appli­ca­tion needs.

For more infor­ma­tion on what Robots​.com has to offer you, con­tact us today online or at 877−762−6881.