Next-Gen Robotic Automation

Traditional robotic arms shine in linear mass production environments where high motion utilization is easily achieved. Every arm is appropriately selected for the:

• Payload, accuracy, and repeatability required to perform each process or transport step.
• Speed required to avoid bottlenecking future steps, using a faster arm or multiple arms.

In cellular environments, such as a grid of 5 enclosed machines, dedicated robotic arms (one arm for each machine) can face extremely lackluster utilization with longer cycle times. For example, a cycle time of 10min and a load-unload time of 10 seconds means the robot is doing nothing 98% of the time! This utilization problem is even worse with processes that are only performed during a fraction of each day or week. Furthermore, batch processing (at each step, all input becomes output before progressing to next step) can limit potential utilization on one process at a time. This is the problem for many small-to-medium scale manufacturers who are interested in automation yet underserved by traditional robotic arms with mediocre utilization, cost-efficiency, and ROI time.

The solution is a smart mobile manipulator capable of superior utilization and easy teaching, perfectly suited for SME manufacturers who want to automate their single-process or multi-process workflow in the most cost-effective and versatile way possible.