How Can SMEs Compete with Major Players in the Gear Industry?
Collaborative robots (cobots), with advantages such as affordability, flexible manufacturing capability, and easy integration, enable small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) to overcome the difficulty of accessing traditional industrial robots. This technology provides sustainable quality and cost control, giving gear manufacturers a competitive edge in the market.
The Competitive Advantage Cobots Create for SMEs
For small-scale companies to overcome the obstacles of competing with major industry players, they must closely follow technology, react quickly, and utilize smarter methods. At this point, cobots are one of the leading technologies that enable market competition.While the high cost of traditional industrial robots makes them difficult for SMEs to access, cobots possess various features that provide a competitive advantage:
- Affordable Cost and Easy Integration: Cobots can be easily integrated into business processes due to their compact structure, without the additional costs associated with setup, programming, and safety barriers.
- Flexible Production: Cobots do not require major factory layout changes due to their ability to operate in confined spaces. Furthermore, their lightweight nature and ease of reprogramming/repositioning allow for flexible production and quick adaptation to changing needs.
- Human Collaboration: Unlike traditional robots, cobots offer the possibility of working alongside humans without a safety cage (subject to risk assessment), as they stop automatically upon sensing danger. This puts humans at the center of production.
- Accessibility: Cobots can enable a company, regardless of its size and location, to compete with large, international companies doing similar work.
Cobots can feed parts into and out of machines even after normal working hours, ensuring the production line is fully utilized and creating a competitive advantage in larger series.
Which Production Processes Should Gear Manufacturers Automate with Cobots?
Automation in gear production should primarily focus on machine tending (especially CNC machines) and quality control/metrology applications. Cobots take over these repetitive and precision-demanding tasks, allowing employees to focus on higher value-added assignments.
Cobot Applications in Gear Manufacturing
Cobot technology offers the most agile, flexible, and fast solution for the metal and machining sector, playing a vital role in achieving the required quality level and maintaining competitiveness in parts production.Robotic applications in gear manufacturing cover a wide range of processes, from machining to packaging. The primary applications cobots provide to gear production include:
Machine Tending (CNC, Machining)
Machine tending is an application requiring millimeter precision and coordination, benefiting from automation for production cycle efficiency, and needing high repetition capability.
- Increased Efficiency: Cobot systems take on repetitive loading and unloading tasks. As seen in the example of the Danish gear manufacturer Fischer Gears, this is used to automate the process of feeding metal parts into CNC machines, enabling companies to be much more competitive on larger orders.
- Employee Support: Cobots relieve personnel from ergonomically challenging, repetitive, and labor-intensive machine cycle tasks. Employees can then focus on managing, controlling automation equipment, and taking on more exciting/value-added tasks.
- Continuous Production: Robots perform machine tending even after normal working hours, making it possible to maximize the utilization of the production line and increase efficiency.
Quality Control, Testing, and Metrology
Providing sustainable quality and assurance is critical in today’s manufacturing conditions. Cobots can take quality control processes to astonishing levels of speed and accuracy.Advantages of Cobots in Quality Control:
- High Precision: Cobots operate with high precision, ranging from ±0,1 mm to ±0,03 mm. They provide repeatability up to 30 microns, making them ideal for quality control and metrology applications where millimeters and microns are crucial.
- Vision System Integration: They can be integrated with innovative vision systems, high-resolution cameras, and optical sensors.
- Reduced Error and Scrap Rates: Automation increases consistency in production and significantly reduces the amount of wasted raw material by ensuring continuous, high-quality output.
- Mechanical Testing: Rapid and easy adaptation to mechanical test control applications thanks to the integrated force-torque sensor.
How Long Does a Cobot Investment Pay Back (ROI) for Gear Manufacturers?
Collaborative robots provide a shorter Return on Investment (ROI) compared to traditional industrial robots. Due to their low total cost of ownership and flexibility, cobots can routinely deliver ROI within six to twelve months.
Factors Enabling Fast ROI
When transitioning to robotic automation, the ROI calculation should consider not only the initial cost but also the total value of automation on your business and the intangible commercial effects.Key factors contributing to the fast ROI of cobots include:
- Low Integration and Maintenance Costs: Cobots minimize integration and setup costs compared to traditional industrial robots, thanks to their ergonomic structure, ease of use, and the lack of a mandatory safety barrier (subject to risk assessment).
- High Efficiency and Stability: Cobots can work 24 hours a day on repetitive tasks. This continuous operation guarantees production stability and increases customer loyalty by ensuring a high-quality product.
- Labor Cost Savings: Cobot technology can be easily installed, programmed, and reprogrammed by almost anyone. This eliminates the need for high-level specialized employment for robot integration, thus saving on recruitment and training costs. Furthermore, by taking over physically demanding tasks, they reduce occupational health and safety issues and associated health expenses.
- Flexibility and Agility: Cobots are applicable for multiple tasks and can be quickly reprogrammed to perform a new set of activities without the assistance of a robot specialist. This agility enhances long-term competitiveness by quickly adapting to market changes.
What Safety Advantages Do Cobots Offer Compared to Traditional Industrial Robots?
Cobots have higher safety standards than traditional industrial robots and offer the ability to work comfortably alongside humans without a safety cage (subject to risk assessment). Cobots are equipped with a certified force-limiting safety system that automatically stops them when they encounter an obstacle in their path.
In Which Sectors Can Cobots Be Used in the Production Line?
Cobots can be used in almost all sectors, including the Metal and Machining sector where gear production takes place, as well as Automotive and Sub-Industry, Electronics and Technology, Food, Beverage and Agriculture, Plastics and Polymers, Medical, Cosmetics, and Chemical industries.
Is Programming Cobots Difficult? Does It Require Expertise?
No, Cobots are designed to be simple and user-friendly. Even an operator with no previous experience can easily program and run a Cobot. Programming can be done by manually moving the arm or using a user-friendly control interface.
How Do Cobots Guarantee Quality in Gear Production?
Cobots offer high repeatability. This precision ensures consistency in quality control (vision-supported inspection) and metrology applications, helping optically detect surface defects smaller than a human hair and significantly reducing the error/scrap rate.
Can Cobots Be Integrated with Existing CNC Machines?
Yes, Cobots can be easily integrated into existing production systems thanks to their compact structure and flexible positioning features. Cobots offer pre-integrated third-party end-effectors and components that provide fast setup and a reliable user experience. This allows for integration with both old and new equipment.