Some examples of factory robots are car production, packaging, electronics, and automated guided vehicles. On the internet a few years ago, was a story about a major Japanese automobile manufacturer who has designs for a completely automated car manufacturing facility – without the use of any human labor…

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The importance of automation and robots in all manufacturing industries is growing. Industrial robots have replaced human beings in a wide variety of industries. Robots out perform humans in jobs that require precision, speed, endurance and reliability. Robots safely perform dirty and dangerous jobs. Traditional manufacturing robotic applications include material handling (pick and place), assembling, painting, welding, packaging, palletizing, product inspection and testing. Industrial robots are used in a diverse range of industries including automotive, electronics, medical, food production, biotech, pharmaceutical and machinery.

The ISO definition of a manipulating industrial robot is “an automatically controlled, reprogrammable, multipurpose manipulator”. According to the definition it can be fixed in place or mobile for use in industrial automation applications. These industrial robots are programmable in three or more axes. They are multi-functional pieces of equipment that can be custom-built and programmed to perform a variety of operations.

The major advantages of industrial robots is that they can be programmed to suit industry specific requirements and can work continuously for years, consistently meeting high manufacturing quality standards. The economic life span of an industrial robot is approximately 12-16 years. Due to their persistent accuracy industrial robots have become an indispensable part of manufacturing.

Industrial robots are classified into different categories based on their mechanical structure. The major categories of industrial robots are:

• Gantry (Cartesian) Robot: They are stationary robots having three elements of motion. They work from an overhead grid with a rectangular work envelope. They are mainly used to perform ‘pick and place’ actions. Gantry robots have all their axes above the work making them also ideal for dispensing applications.
• SCARA Robots: (Selectively Compliant Articulated Robot Arm) These robots have 4 axes of motion. They move within an x-y-z coordinated circular work envelope. They are used for factory automation requiring pick and place work, application and assembly operations and handling machine tools.
• Articulated robots: An articulated robot has rotary joints. It can have from two to ten or more interactive joints. Articulated robots are well suited to welding, painting and assembly.

Basic industrial robot designs can be customized with the addition of different peripherals. End effectors, optical systems, and motion controllers are essential add-ons. End effectors are the end-of-arm-tooling (EOAT) attached to robotic arms. Grippers or wrenches that are used to move or assemble parts are examples of end effectors. End effectors are designed and used to sense and interact with the external environment. The end effectors’ design depends on the application requirements of the specific industry. Machine Vision systems are robotic optical systems. They are built-on digital input/output devices and computer networks used to control other manufacturing equipment such as robotic arms. Machine vision is used for the inspection of manufactured goods such as semiconductor chips. Motion controllers are used to move robots and position stages smoothly and accurately with sub-micron repeatability.Industrial robots fill the need for greater precision, reliability, flexibility and production output in the increasingly competitive and complex manufacturing industry environment.

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The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe concluded in its 2003 Robotics Survey that robots are among the worlds most in demand commodities. Sectors demanding robots include industrial plants, science and technology, research, medicine and household work. Growth rates for sales in 2003 reached 35% in North America, 25% in Europe and 18% in Asia.

Robots in the manufacturing industry have been equated as the number of robots per 10,000 workers. In the motor manufacturing, it can be predicted to have 1 robot as replacement for 10 workers. This brings us to the level of competency and accuracy in terms of jobs done by robots and by human workers.

Robots have been employed in application from food to automobiles. Japan has been the leading country in utilizing robots, however in 2003 the United States spent $877 million in buying robots for material handling in factories. The automotive industry has used C flexrobots for odd and dangerous jobs before but now even the simplest tasks such as installation and welding are being automated.

Industry sectors employing robots

In food manufacturing and assembly, Adept Robots, can make 75 to 125 Oreo cookies a minutes. For the service industry, Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) have taken over the role of a cashier in banks. In restaurants, the self service check out machine is beginning to be a familiar sight.

In the health service sector, experiments on robotic companion to assist the elderly in home for the aged and in hospitals are under way. They are equipped with a real time video feed that is transmitted among the nurses, patients and physicians.

Soon enough warehouse stores will be using radio frequency tags so that robots can drop off or store items. Carnegie Mellon University prides itself in the development of the very first robot receptionist. It can sense motion and greet visitors while the Asimo Honda model had been in development to replace office clerks, leaving humans to do supervisory and administrative tasks.

New robots for the pulp and the paper mills industry are also being developed. These totally eliminate the need for human labor with its precision control and smooth movement. The whole system is currently being used in the largest operating paper converter in the North America.

A new virtual training system for welders has been launched recently, and this will eliminate manual training and will provide a fresh and modern approach to welders. As the area of manufacturing has been concentrating in high end products like luxury cars, the introduction of these virtual welding modules will increase the number of highly trained professionals in the manufacturing industry.

Stealing Jobs from Humans

However, humanoids taking over human jobs have been a subject of protests all over the world. The Luddism movement which started out in England advocates anti automation of jobs. Its founder, Ned Lud was known to have destroyed weaving machines that were starting to replace human workers. Truly, it can be inferred that a robotic manufacturing economy will lead to massive lay offs and replacements of workers.

Robotics versus Outsourcing

Choosing robots over outsourcing has also been a dilemma for manufacturers when reduction of expenses and increase productivity is being considered. Outsourcing a manufacturing facility overseas must take into account labor force training, intellectual property protection among others. Through robotics however, the cost of labor is reduced and the quality standard is maintained.

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