Robot Savings Time

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 877−762−6881.

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​/​2​0​1​5​/​0​4​/​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