As the demand for various goods increased, it was no longer possible to only use human labor, which resulted in automation. Since then automation is evident in machines and factories for decades. It has helped us to manufacture goods with higher quantity, precision, accuracy and quality. Today, most of our machines, factories, plants and processes are either semi-automatic or fully automatic with some areas having manual operations.
Packaging, F&B, printing are among the industries, which are highly automated and this has been the case for many years. Today, when we talk about automation, it is just not limited to basic automation but machines and factories looking at advanced automation concepts making their machines and factories next generation factories or future factories. Technology is evolving rapidly and keeping pace with such evolving technologies is definitely a challenge for many. However, we see machine builders and factories working hard towards such adoptions and providing innovative products to their customers.
The kind of automation and advanced automation concepts needed in manufacturing is also owing to the constantly changing consumer demands. Consumer buying behavior has changed over the years. Today, consumers are willing to pay a premium for customized and individualized products. These rising consumer demands requires a paradigm shift in the way factories are manufacturing products. It is essential for manufacturing setups to keep costs economical even for small batches.
This has led to the adoption of next generation transport technologies such as B&R ACOPOStrak and SuperTrak. B&R’s track-based transport systems let you move products through your production line more efficiently while simultaneously improving quality. ACOPOStrak is a revolution in adaptive manufacturing. This highly flexible transport system extends the economy of mass production down to batches of one. With ACOPOStrak, factories are able to increase overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), boost the return on investment (ROI) in machines and lines and shorten time to market (TTM).
Moreover, robots and quality are playing an increasingly important role in manufacturing setups for higher productivity and lower rejections. Conventionally robots, vision inspection and machine controls were always separate elements when automation was considered. In addition, robots and vision were looked as good to have additional features. Today, with a need for higher product quality, precision, reduced waste and losses, robots and vision are no longer good to have but a must have.
B&R is the first company to seamlessly incorporate machine vision solution in the automation system and takes integrated machine vision to a completely new level making it easy for machine builders to incorporate vision algorithm in machine control. From the robot point of view, B&R also offers ABB robots as an integral part of its automation system.
Customers benefit from unprecedented precision in synchronization between robotics, vision and machine control. Merging robotics, vision and machine control into one unified architecture enables manufacturers to embrace the trend of mass customization, optimize their batch-size-one processes and further enhance product quality. In a way, this is just the tip of the iceberg with tremendous possibilities underlying in advanced automation concepts such as artificial and business intelligence, machine learning, remote and predictive maintenance, energy and condition monitoring among many others.
– Ninad Deshpande
