Tuesday, March 03, 2020
With the increased focus today for more efficient, safe and effective practices; collaborative robots or cobots are a great addition to any company. Cobots have a wide variety of functions which can be tailored and reprogrammed to suit the specific needs of each business. Below are just some of the numerous cobot uses in the industry.
Machine tending
Machine tending is a fantastic fit for the cobot. The cobot's flexibility allows it to tend to multiple machines at once, increasing efficiency, productivity, and freeing up human employees for up or downstream tasks.
Finishing Tasks
Finishing tasks such as polishing, grinding, and deburring are not only tedious and time consuming but presents an inherent risk of injury. Cobots are able to provide the adequate amount of force, accuracy and repetition to perform finishing tasks comfortably while minimising the safety risk.
Picking, packaging and palletising
Cobots have reduced the amount of time the process takes dramatically, taking only fifteen minutes to complete a process that used to take humans up to an hour. Cobots have recently been adopted by Amazon for the purpose of picking products in their warehouses. They bring shelves of merchandise to Amazon associates to prepare for shipment. The repetitive nature, and small load of picking, packing and palletising make them a perfect fit for a cobot.
Process tasks
Cobots can be fitted with many different end-effectors, allowing them to be utilised in the performance of repetitive process tasks, such as: painting, welding, gluing, or dispensing. Cobots have a distinct edge in process tasks, as unlike industrial robots they are able to be programmed by the process workers themselves. This not only frees the human worker up to perform the more intricate parts of the process while the cobot handles the repetitive parts but also prevents repetitive stress injuries.
Quality Inspection
By fitting cobot end-effectors with high resolution cameras, cobots can be used to conduct quality inspection tests to verify products against CAD models, automating the process.
Written by David Askew, the CEO of Fast Automation Pty Ltd.
Based in Australia, David has over twenty years of experience in the automation industry and has performed thousands of world-first, mission critical automation projects. He is highly passionate about helping clients do more for less and do it for longer, better, safer and faster. Leading the industry for new and innovative technologies, Fast Automation are currently integrators of a range of collaborative robots (Cobots). Beyond automation, David is a believer of giving back to the community and is a proud supporter of The Kid's Cancer Project among other philanthropic endeavours.
To find out more about cobots or how David and the team at Fast Automation can help your business contact us today.
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