F

actories today are being

pressured to produce ever more

individual products to meet fast

changing consumer demands.

Other considerations include

shorter product life cycles and skilled

labour shortages. To handle these

issues it is necessary to build in more

production flexibility to enable quick

line changeovers and layout changes.

In many applications, greater

flexibility can be introduced if the

traditional production line is ‘broken

up’ into individual cells. With such

process modules, products can be more

easily customised and the modules can

be rearranged if necessary. If a specific

product isn’t produced, the other

process modules still continue to work.

Driverless transport systems (AIV/AGV)

or mobile robots can be used to ensure

a flexible and reliable flow of goods

between these individual modules. This

solves the issue of increasingly variable

products produced in small quantities,

constantly changing production

conditions, and the just-in-time

provision of different components.

Collaborative robots that can

work safely alongside people also

have an important role to play in

enabling flexible manufacturing. A

new generation of cobots is emerging

in response to Industry 4.0. In

applications where flexibility and not

production speed is key, collaborative

robots are now filling the gap, with

extremely user-friendly software tools

and integrated sensory functions.

Advances in machine vision systems,

location capabilities and integration

with warehouse systems is helping to

achieve this.

THE ROLE OF ROBOTICS IN

FLEXIBLE PRODUCTION

Peter Lange believes that combining the power of mobile robots and cobots is key

to making factories more flexible to cope with rapidly changing demands.

Control Engineering Europe http://www.controlengeurope.com March 2019 17

ROBOTICS

Collaborative robots can be widely

deployed in production, testing, quality

control, packaging and palletising

applications, for example, as well as

intralogistics. They can support people

in assembly processes when precision

and repeatability are key, or could apply

adhesives and seals with simultaneous

quality control. Thanks to repeatability,

they are also suited to automating

complex quality tests, and their ability

to lift heavy objects means they can also

be used as palletisers when partnered

with the appropriate safety equipment.

Joining forces

Bringing cobots and mobile robots

together is the obvious next step.

Collaborative robots mounted on

mobile robots are expected to become

integral to innovative logistic solutions.

Manufacturers should be looking at

how to integrate collaborative robots

into their more flexible, constantly

evolving production environments,

particularly where the re-deployment

of machines, line changeovers and

conveyors is a requirement.

When you add the ever-growing

capabilities of machine vision and

artificial intelligence (AI) into the mix,

the possibilities for robots grows even

further. A collaborative robot, for

example, can have a built-in intelligent

vision system which would give it

totem pairing, object position, bar code

identification, colour differentiation,

and other vision functions. Gestures can

guide the robot by hand, and change

the degree of freedom of the hand-

guide function according to different

conditions.

The increasing use of cobots and

mobile robots is another step towards

the flexible manufacturing industry of

the future, where humans and machines

will work together in harmony

When machines can relieve people of

monotonous or stressful tasks and allow

them to concentrate on more value-add

tasks, production lines will run more

smoothly, helping to increase efficiency

and productivity.!

Peter Lange is robotics manager at

Omron Europe.