The effect of robotics and associated technology has been so profound on manufacturing and packaging in the recent years that it has actually changed the entire industry forever, through unprecedented boosts in productivity, speed, precision, and efficiency. The assurance of better-quality control, higher production rates, minimal waste, lower costs and most importantly, reduced safety hazards for workers are just some of the benefits that robots bring to the industry. As the US manufacturing and packaging industry has been among the first to fully realize, implement, and benefit from the revolutionary robotics technology, taking a look at how they are doing it reveals more about what’s going on.
Single-Step Drilling and Fastening
Human drilling and fastening in a manufacturing unit usually involves three steps, but robotic drilling can actually do it in a single step, which in mass manufacturing makes a huge difference in terms of everything from the speed and cost of production, right down to the capacity to meet market demands in time. Aside from that, drilling through harder metals and alloys such as titanium, for example, will take men a lot more time, while drilling and fastening robots can do the same in a fraction of that time.
Faster and Safer Palletizing
In the packaging industry, manual palletizing wastes time and it risks the well-being of the employees as well because they have to carry huge and unsafe loads physically over to the pallets. The robotic palletizer eliminates the need to put employees in such danger and it saves money by both cutting unnecessary labor costs, as well as speeding up the entire packaging process. For example, the popular Stratum robotic palletizer can palletize up to forty cases per minute, while applying slip sheets simultaneously.
Collaborative Assembly
Artificial intelligence is more than a buzz word in the industrial sector and some factories are actively using AI supervision to successfully monitor the assembly and cut out the human error factor from delicate assembling processes. On the other hand, welding, mass scale painting, and sealing processes are now being exclusively carried out by robotic systems because of the work’s delicate nature, which really doesn’t have any room for error in the modern world. Even small mistakes in the assembly of an airplane or a vehicle can lead to disasters. Introduction of robotics into manufacturing has largely eliminated such incidents from occurring.
In spite of manufacturing and packaging being the prime industries where robotic machines and directive software are being utilized the most, they are not the only businesses to take advantage of the technology. Surgical robots are assisting surgeons in prostatectomies, hysterectomies, and various other minimally-invasive surgeries in the US healthcare industry. The robotic mobility platforms, on the other hand, have made mining a safer operation compared to how it was before. Although the US military isn’t a business, the businesses that supply them with their drones, bomb-defusing robots, and other forms of classified robotic technology continue to thrive as well.