The persistent financial challenges dealing with manufacturing stick with regional inflation, international conflicts, an growing old workforce, disruptions within the provide chain, well being epidemics, and different compounding components, every taking part in a job. Enterprise house owners who reassess their technique and take into account automation are forward of the curve.
As demonstrated all through the COVID pandemic, companies geared up with automation had been extra resilient to shifts when in comparison with their counterparts. ASME famous that “investing in automation and robotics was a technique firms coped with the lack of employees.” Guide jobs like palletizing had been comparatively easy to fill not way back. The abundance of obtainable employees, restricted e-commerce, and decreased product complexity made conducting enterprise with guide labor attainable.
Immediately, the financial setting is sort of solely totally different: the obtainable (and ) workforce is diminishing, e-commerce continues to develop and product range is increasing. These headwinds have created a brand new growth in automation investments, notably in collaborative robotics. Producers are discovering that cobot palletizers, for instance, are extra accessible, have a smaller footprint, and are extra budget-friendly. This permits them to handle folks, productiveness, and adaptableness challenges. This text explores how these automated palletizing methods have gotten very important instruments in industries resembling meals & beverage, client items, and pharmaceutical manufacturing.
Folks: Enhancing workforce dynamics
Automation is doing jobs that folks don’t need.
Automation is doing jobs that folks don’t need.
A frozen fish producer, Korea Pelagic, wanted assist discovering folks to stack pallets of fish in a freezer. Palletizing fish on very tall pallets is a bodily demanding endeavor within the chilly, making it difficult to search out keen employees. There have been only a few folks keen to work this repetitive, monotonous, harmful job. Time is crucial in meals manufacturing, so Korea Pelagic turned to automation to make sure well timed shipments.
A palletizing cobot was the right resolution for this demanding setting. Not solely was the cobot keen to work within the chilly, the consequence was a 200% improve in productiveness and a chance to offer extra rewarding and sustainable work for his or her staff. Learn the whole case research.
Present respect for the workforce.
TIDI Merchandise, a pacesetter in an infection prevention and affected person security merchandise, confronted inefficiencies because of a scarcity of employees. One individual did two duties to maintain up with manufacturing calls for. Overburdening an individual slowed down manufacturing, elevated their backlog, decreased morale, and restricted the variety of orders TDI Merchandise might settle for. TIDI invested in end-of-line automated palletizing methods. This resolution addressed operational bottlenecks, decreased ergonomic points, and elevated workforce job satisfaction.
The palletizers carried out higher than anticipated, so TIDI Merchandise acquired two extra methods.
Initially, folks anxious that robots would take their jobs. Now, folks count on employers to put money into supporting and serving to their staff. This contains making automation take the burden of the guide and repetitive duties they don’t need to do. If staff don’t just like the job or really feel like their employer isn’t investing in them, they depart. That is extra prevalent in youthful generations who really feel the necessity to swap jobs to care for his or her pursuits.
In line with Enterprise Insider, 73% of Gen Z employees are keen to take a pay lower or a decrease place if their job doesn’t meet their wants. Gen Z (born between 1997 and 2012) is rejecting monotonous, bodily demanding jobs and additional shrinking the obtainable labor. As this pattern continues, companies will inevitably have to put money into automation.
Corporations should put money into their staff to extend employee retention. TIDI Merchandise Worth Stream Supervisor Cameron Lemke summarizes: “If you happen to’re in a enterprise that cares about your workforce, that is a simple funding to assist them really feel supported and encourage their longevity with your corporation.”
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“If you happen to’re in a enterprise that cares about your workforce, that is a simple funding to assist them really feel supported and encourage their longevity with your corporation.” |
Learn and watch the TIDI Merchandise case research.
Create sustainable jobs (that folks need).
Cascade Espresso, a roasting and co-manufacturing firm, skilled persistent labor shortages and issues of safety of their guide palletizing operations. With the deployment of automated palletizing items, job satisfaction and security had been improved. The system’s adaptability allowed for seamless integration, optimizing productiveness and permitting staff to advance. It took 5 minutes to coach an operator on the cobot. Now, the palletizer does the lower-paid job, and the folks advance within the firm. Watch how Cascade Espresso palletizes 6,500 instances a day and grows its staff.
Productiveness: Unleashing operational potential
Each pallet counts.
The target is to stop unplanned downtime. Though regularly missed, the palletization course of can emerge as a bottleneck. In a one-piece-flow setting, the cycle time must lower to match the velocity of the slowest activity. Automation can alleviate this bottleneck and convey cycle time nearer to takt time. Cascade Espresso’s transition from guide to automated palletizing resolved labor shortages and eradicated bottlenecks.
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“The straightforward guide processes had been consuming simply an immense period of time to the place machines would cease as a result of operators truly couldn’t palletize quick sufficient.” – Ron Kane, COO of Cascade Espresso. Watch the full video. |
The cobots guarantee a steady and environment friendly manufacturing circulate, permitting for the optimization of sources and achievement of supply deadlines.
Automated palletizing will increase throughput.
TIDI Merchandise skilled important positive aspects in productiveness after incorporating automated palletizing items. They documented productiveness positive aspects of 30% from the primary palletizing cell. Subsequent cells have elevated by a equally spectacular 25%. Productiveness positive aspects permits producers to optimize useful resource utilization, cut back manufacturing prices, and preserve aggressive pricing.
Robotic palletizers additionally improve productiveness in meals manufacturing. Bread producer Antic in Spain confronted difficulties manually palletizing merchandise on two manufacturing traces. The corporate wanted a scalable, automated resolution to accommodate numerous product weights and enhance manufacturing velocity. Labor shortages added to the urgency of discovering an efficient decision. Their search led them to a palletizing collaborative robotic that runs two automated traces and elevated manufacturing velocity by 30%.
An automatic system can sustain.
Automated palletizing methods present excessive effectivity by maintaining with manufacturing processes. Person-friendly software program makes it straightforward to alter the palletizing cobot for brand spanking new field sizes or pallet configurations. For instance, the Robotiq Palletizing Resolution mechanically generates and optimizes trajectories and cobot actions. Robotiq makes use of assistant instruments and easy configurations. Enter necessities resembling:
- Field dimensions, weight, and orientation
- Pallet dimensions
- Pallet configuration
This software program works for the individual as a substitute of the individual working for it. With a couple of minutes of coaching, operators can have the automated palletizer stacking bins.
Adaptability: Assembly market calls for with ease
Be led by buyer necessities and market alternatives, not manufacturing facility limitations.
Regardless of the financial pressures in manufacturing, each firm goals for customer-driven management slightly than being dictated by exterior components. This implies factories should stay agile and productive.
Napco, a espresso distribution firm, highlights the productiveness positive aspects skilled when utilizing palletizing methods. The lead operator, who had no prior expertise in robotics, was in a position to learn to function the system shortly. This automated palletizing system created a 15% improve in productiveness.
Streamlined enlargement: timing your prices with advantages
The pliability and modular design of automated palletizing options allow streamlined enlargement. With the flexibility to duplicate and combine extra items onto totally different manufacturing traces, producers can scale successfully in response to fluctuations in demand. TIDI noticed this primary hand. Scalability, mixed with a typical payback interval of 1 12 months, ensures a considerable return on funding and positively impacts the underside line.
Automated palletizing methods with built-in cobots have turn out to be indispensable allies for meals & beverage, client items, and pharmaceutical producers dealing with continued financial pressures. These methods assist them navigate labor-related challenges, improve productiveness, and foster adaptability.
Management your future
At Robotiq, we comply with the ideas of LEAN ROBOTICS to create a standardized resolution that’s simpler to scale, repeatable, and straightforward to make use of. We perceive the financial pressures in manufacturing and now we have expertise working with meals & beverage, client items, and pharmaceutical producers.
Allow us to get you began – implementation is simpler than you assume. Focus on with considered one of our automation consultants in the present day to kickstart your undertaking.
