Rapidly growing robot-making company Universal Robots is eyeing the evolving manufacturing practices across industries including automotive.
With a focus on increasing productivity and efficiencies on the assembly lines in manufacturing plants that operate 24×7, the company looks to bank upon the next-generation environment of robots and workers working together.
Universal Robots, which was officially founded in 2005 (see company history panel alongside), works towards making robotic technologies accessible to small and medium enterprises (SMEs). It is also the first mover in the small robot space.
Chief Operating Officer (CCO), Universal Robots, Daniel Friissaid said – “Our robots are for small and medium businesses and not for large plants with heavy machinery. Conventionally, when you talk robotics, you talk about the automotive industry and large and heavy, complex robotic arms. Of course, our business is going in that direction because that’s where they use the robotics, and they can add another dimension to their activities with our products (small robots). We foresee that roughly one-third of our business in going into the automotive sector including the suppliers around this industry.”
“We do not promote replacing employees with industrial robots. What our products do is very different to that notion. Our robots can be used as tools that can work collaboratively with the manpower in the small and medium enterprises. They are easy to use and easy to program. One of the biggest advantages is that there is no need for safety measures around these small robots, unlike the large ones. So it’s essentially a robot that works alongside a human to add flexibility and productivity. These robots can also be easily transferred from one job to the other as they are small.”
“It is a huge opportunity for small businesses to change the way they work and get more efficiency out of their production. These products can take up boring, laborious tasks while the manpower can move to more complicated and crucial jobs,” Friis added, throwing light on the collaborative nature of robots with a light payload.
Pradeep David, General Manager, India operations, Universal Robots, said – “That’s how the manufacturing of the next generation will look like. We are talking about collaborative robots, which we call co-bots. These are designed ground-up to be extremely light. We can put it on our shoulder and can carry a 5kg payload unit for different jobs. You can plug it into the wall and have it work like just another consumer appliance. Unlike traditional robots, these don’t kill you. The new paradigm is to have a worker and a co-bot work hand-in-hand,” he said.
Source: Autocarpro.in
Image Courtesy: Autocarpro.in
