Article Abstract:
Mobile Robots Fit Well into Flexible Manufacturing Systems
Society of Manufacturing Engineers
The Society of Manufacturing Engineers reports that intelligent robots are offering key solutions for flexible manufacturing systems. Advances in technology have created mobile robots that can make factory production more efficient and productive. Industrial robots are performing increasingly more complex jobs, such as product identification and inspection, random order palletizing and packaging, and material handling applications. “Machines now can intelligently go from place to place and collect parts and take them to the appropriate work cell, which opens up a new different way of structuring the manufacturing environment,” said Dr. Gordon Wyeth, president of the Australian Robotics and Automation Association.
The primary benefit of using industrial robots in factory production is their ability to perform specific jobs more efficiently, eliminate human error, reduce overall loss due to accidents, while remaining more flexible than fixed automated units in case the production process changes due to market demands. "Mobile robots are going to just keep getting smarter to a point where they can get integrated into flexible manufacturing systems," said Dr. Wyeth.
The worldwide sales in robots over the past year increased 25%. As industrial robots become more intelligent, North American manufacturers increasingly use them in their flexible manufacturing systems to retain a competitive advantage over countries with low cost labor forces. Intelligent robots make higher quality products in less time and less cost than traditional manufacturing. With vision based sensing systems, mobile robots can move across the factory floor without long wires. Vision-guided systems can also inspect and identify final products more quickly than a human with gauges and other measuring devices.
Save Your Factory offers a link to this article by SME and similar resources that illustrate more cost-effective alternatives to offshoring. We encourage all manufacturers to do a complete analysis of the costs of offshoring compared with the possibilities of lean manufacturing practices and robotic automation.
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