Starting Small with Automation: Advice from Industry Giants

POSTED 01/08/2024  | By: John Lewis, A3 Contributing Editor, Tech B2B Advertising and marketing and marketing

Factory automation is in most cases a brand recent self-discipline, even supposing it has eschewed a gigantic many electromechanical parts in prefer of an increasing kind of digital ones. Implementing automation solutions affords many advantages: more would possibly per chance moreover moreover be done with less, errors would possibly per chance moreover moreover be minimized, and quality would possibly per chance moreover moreover be improved. But where must aloof a manufacturer beginning? We spoke with rather rather about a substitute leaders in manufacturing facility automation to catch their advice for simple beginning diminutive and position the stage for success.

Steer obvious of Typical Pitfalls

For those making ready to dip their toes within the automation waters, there would possibly per chance moreover moreover be gargantuan apprehension. Some indecent perceptions about automation can develop it a field for firms to originate. As an illustration, leaders at many producers anxiety automation because they imagine it would one device or the opposite lead to lost jobs — one thing they’re many times reticent about addressing with employees.

“Anxiousness of job displacement desires to be acknowledged and taken critically,” acknowledged Fredrik Ryden, CEO of Olis Robotics. “But in point of fact robots and automation are uncomfortable replacements for folks. Other folks have a commonsense realizing of the enviornment and the guidelines of physics that far exceeds the abilities of any industrial robot on hand this day.”

Paul Anderson, director of field utility engineering for Omron Automation Americas, agreed. “Concerns about job displacement are in keeping with the realization that a particular person will seemingly be eradicated moderately than repurposed,” he acknowledged. “There would possibly be published recordsdata exhibiting that, in declare, including robots to plant floors results in genuine or increased headcounts.”

Manufacturing and industrial workforces are tremendously changing, in accordance with Damon Sepe, N.A. OEM section supervisor-heavy substitute gear at Rockwell Automation. “All thru the globe, older employees are shifting towards retirement and taking a protracted time of ride and recordsdata with them, while a restricted abilities pool of youthful, less skilled employees takes their set aside,” he explains. “Automation desires to be considered as formula to address these team challenges and assemble recent alternatives to deploy and toughen these programs within the sphere.”

One other anxiety about automation is that it would possibly possibly probably per chance be advanced, costly, and time-fascinating.

“Whereas there are absolutely advanced functions for machine vision, there are moreover many easy and simple-to-position-up merchandise which would possibly moreover merely also be set aside into manufacturing in days — no longer months — and received’t break the financial institution,” acknowledged George Gauthier, senior supervisor for product marketing at Cognex.

Chris Liu, product supervisor for Siemens, acknowledged it’s no longer necessary to automate the total thing in each place . “At the very origin, beginning with some pilot processes or pilot projects and show the advantages that can strategy from automation at a smaller scale. Scale up handiest after achieving success on the smaller automatic processes.”

At the same time, it’s severe no longer to underestimate the amount of work that desires doing — an error Patrick Varley, product marketing supervisor (robotics) for Mitsubishi Electric, sees many times. “This can strategy from a vary of origins:  inexperience, listening to the infamous advice, and no longer realizing the direction of that you just are automating moreover to you thought.”

“Automation desires to be applied handiest after a thorough evaluate of on hand solutions has been conducted to be obvious correct scale through fee and size, moreover to capabilities for this day and in future have been in point of fact apt,” acknowledged Sepe. “Or no longer it is far necessary to partner with an automation supplier with a lengthy historical previous of making use of and supporting automation abilities.”

Growing an automation strategy would possibly per chance per chance support address administration fears while guaranteeing the implementation direction of goes with out difficulty. On the opposite hand, Anderson acknowledged he many times sees firms add automation with out a device in set aside.

“With out a clearly outlined strategy, it’s easy to repair diminutive issues moderately than taking a leer broader in scope to work towards identifying higher issues or alternatives,” he acknowledged. “A cohesive automation structure enables firms to originate engaged on diminutive, manageable responsibilities, while aloof allowing them to develop enhancements which would possibly moreover be per an general automation strategy.”

Name Automation Candidates

Piece of growing an automation strategy is identifying those manufacturing processes easiest suited to automation. But what exactly makes a direction of “proper?”

Per Gauthier, costly and mistake-susceptible jobs are an real set aside to beginning, including “inspections that if overlooked lead to costly product returns or rejections, processes that produce outrageous amounts of break, or severe manufacturing steps that can lead to issues later.”

Anderson agreed that error-susceptible processes are many times rate automating. He added that totally different proper candidates are processes many times inflicting bottlenecks and operations requiring necessary operator interplay.

“Disposing of bottlenecks and errors improves throughput and focusing on parts of necessary operator involvement reduces repetitive work and doable sources of human error,” Anderson acknowledged.

Alongside those traces, Gauthier acknowledged that automating processes which would possibly moreover be “boring, unpleasant, or dirty” many times makes sense. Ryden added that automating responsibilities that take a toll on employees’ bodies is a gigantic technique to reinforce ergonomics. “Even the most skeptical worker will buy in to the mission when they peek how critically better their working lives will seemingly be with robot assistance,” he acknowledged.

Per Sepe, “A proper set aside to focal level is on high trace substitute outcomes much like increasing machine throughput, decreasing alternate-over time, and bettering gear uptime.”

Chris Liu, product supervisor for Siemens, acknowledged that automation is an real preference for processes that rely heavily on recordsdata prognosis or manipulation. “They’ll if truth be told delight in those automation applied sciences,” he acknowledged. “As an illustration, if you wish to manufacture native recordsdata manipulation or recordsdata administration, that you just would be in a position to per chance possibly moreover use edge computing.”

Liu added that direction of variability is but another technique to evaluate a direction of’s candidacy for automation. “Those with low variability or with minimum expectations — those are actually more straightforward to automate,” he acknowledged.

Determining the Skills

Returning to pitfalls, Liu acknowledged it’s same outdated for producers to resolve the infamous abilities for his or her automation processes. Gauthier agreed, including that it’s wise to realise the on hand abilities and predominant vendors.

“One vogue we’re serious about is edge discovering out — a subset of AI that makes environment up a vision utility important more straightforward and faster by constructing the AI processing directly into the vision plot or sensor and pre-coaching the algorithms for same outdated functions,” Gauthier acknowledged. “You don’t can must be an automation expert or a programmer to catch it working, and also you don’t need thousands of coaching photography for it to learn from.”

Equally, Liu correctly-known edge computing as a cutting-edge automation abilities. “A range of producers, they’ve to have their recordsdata. They set aside no longer must relate their recordsdata externally on the cloud to the public or third-catch collectively cloud suppliers. So that’s why we launched edge computing, meaning you set aside the total thing associated with recordsdata — like recordsdata series, administration, storage, analytics — within the neighborhood to your shop floor by your have automation engineers.”

Per Anderson, predictive upkeep instruments are amongst the sole on hand for automating processes. “Predictive upkeep instruments video show gadgets on the plant floor — motors, cupboard aspect temperatures, and deal of others. — to identify doable causes of failure forward of an unplanned downtime event happens,” he acknowledged. “The downtime costs on these unplanned events with out grunt pay for the rate of the solutions, so they’ll moreover moreover be rapid wins for firms.”

Varley correctly-known that the parts making up an automation resolution this day are more tough and legit than ever forward of. “This affords self belief that the automation will reside in top working situation at some level of and previous the calculated ROI length,” he acknowledged, including that every person merchandise are no longer created equally — making it severe that you just work with suppliers having a recognition for quality.

Digital transformation is making a dramatic impact in this day’s wise manufacturing environments. Fetch admission to to manufacturing recordsdata is never any longer a brand recent thought, but what is changing is the amount of manufacturing recordsdata being captured and the device it is being worn to reinforce operations.

“Our digital transformation consulting group works with purchasers on a strategic device that addresses precedence use cases, substitute justification, alternate administration, and an execution roadmap for abilities implementation and toughen, all personalized to their extraordinary dreams and digital maturity stage,” Sepe outlined.

Measuring Success

There are merely about as many ways of gauging an automation resolution’s effectiveness as there are totally different kinds of automation solutions. Collecting same outdated metrics, much like throughput and uptime, is easy the use of utility packages that develop it easy to fleet resolve whether or no longer the deployed resolution is performing to specs, outlined Ryden.

Anderson acknowledged one device used to be merely taking the financial formula.

“ROI/payback periods would possibly per chance moreover moreover be calculated by taking a leer at the general financial funding and the advantages in throughput when when in contrast with forward of and after,” he acknowledged. Anderson added that throughput in and of itself is on the complete a measure of success.

“Throughput and quality enhancements are correct totally different views of metrics that would possibly per chance per chance support show how the automation investments are bettering the plant,” he acknowledged. “These metrics many times suggest more to employees than the financial metrics.”

Gauthier known metrics by substitute. “Manufacturers must aloof leer at manufacturing speeds, quality metrics, and scrap rates. Logistics suppliers must aloof leer at throughput.”

Per Liu, there are several totally different kinds of measurements. “That that it is likely you’ll per chance possibly moreover if truth be told use those automation instruments to trace your general productiveness enhancements,” he acknowledged. “And that you just would be in a position to moreover moreover relate how those automatic processes reinforce the effectivity of your substitute operations.”

Studying from Successes

There’s no scarcity of automation success tales across any kind of manufacturing industries. Turning to them can instill self belief and provide steering.

“One who comes to thoughts is Federal Bundle, a contract manufacturer in Minnesota that currently engaged with Cognex and used to be pleasantly taken aback by how easy it used to be to catch began and how important of an impact a machine vision plot can have,” Gauthier acknowledged. “Thanks to edge discovering out abilities, coaching the plot used to be easy and they were in a situation to catch a brand recent automatic inspection plot deployed in no longer up to an hour. Now, they peek over ninety nine% defect detection, can with out grunt declare the plot to glimpse recent merchandise when wanted, and are delivering the usual their clients demand.”

Varley acknowledged that Mitsubishi Electric buyer World Broad Fittings in Illinois conducted a loading and unloading plot for a CNC lathe. Sean McCarthy, president and proprietor of World Broad Fittings, acknowledged bettering effectivity used to be the predominant plot. “What it gets the general device down to goes from a 70% utilization price to 95%,” McCarthy acknowledged.

For Sepe, Sani-Matic, a producer of cleansing and sterilization gear comes to thoughts. “Sani-Matic relies on automation to manipulate advanced processes and meet regulatory reporting requirements,” Sepe acknowledged. “The company is moreover an real example of the device it’s that that you just would be in a position to per chance possibly moreover imagine to leverage recent digital cloud and automation abilities to reinforce the gear they provide and provide recent companies to their purchasers.”

Per Anderson, Omron has a buyer that makes arena of abilities lighting fixtures gear for the automotive substitute. “Quite than taking a leer to automate the important thing manufacturing traces, they looked at automating the recent product traces, as these shall be low-risk alternatives ensuing from lower throughput,” he acknowledged. “They were in a situation to invent a modular automation that used to be extremely versatile for recent merchandise, and when they felt overjoyed the use of that resolution, they began increasing their automation to several robotic programs and persevered rising.”