FORMING AND FABRICATING AUTOMATION
Mobile Cobots for Machine Tending and More A
recent demonstration reveals the capabilities of mobile cobots for job-shop tasks, including machine tending, picking and part washing,
among others. Companies that form, fabricate or machine parts not only face the labor shortage and productivity issues, but now also confront challenges from customer demands to handle low-vol- ume, high-mix work. A flexible and safe solution: mounting a cobot to a mobile platform such as an autonomous mobile robot, according to Christian Stevenson, senior engineer with Fanuc America, Inc. This type of mobile-manipulator solution enables one worker to move the robot to different machines around the plant floor easily, and quickly set it up for any num - ber of tasks—a huge benefit that allows companies to meet customers’ demands while saving time and money. It also allows skilled employees to remain in the cobot’s workcell to handle other tasks while the cobot performs repetitive loading and unloading.
Mounting a cobot to a mobile platform such as an autonomous mobile robot enables one worker to move the robot to different machines around the plant floor easily, and quickly set it up for any number of tasks. Fanuc recently demonstrated such capability during a demonstration where a mobile manipulator performed machine tending, pick-and-place and other tasks.
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