With the high increase in productivity levels in manufacturing industries, collaborative robots are becoming a sure way of increasing productivity.
obots also are known as collaborative robots are a type of robots that are intended to work alongside humans by sharing their workplaces.
Contrary to earlier fears where humans thought that robots were designed to completely take over their jobs, the opposite is becoming a reality with humans working side by side with the robots.
Through the advancement in robotic technology and computing power, the small industrial robot is becoming more and more popular amongst the small and medium-sized businesses as compared to the earlier generation of industrial robots.
Differences between collaborative robots and traditional robots:
Easy to set up : Initially, it takes weeks before a traditional industrial robot becomes operational. However, with collaborative robots, it just takes a few hours to set it up and ready to undertake its tasks.
Easier Programming: collaborative robots need no expertise when it comes to setting them up or even to operate them. These types of robots are virtually easily programmed by either adjusting the robots arm or through a tablet.
Safety: Unlike the traditional industrial robots which have to be secured behind a cage because of their rapid movements and bulkiness, cobots are safe to work with.
This is because robots are designed in such a way that they can sense obstacles. They are also designed to easily adjust their speed of movement or even to reverse to avoid crashing into humans and other obstacles.
This, however, has not always been the case with traditional robots. They are often bolted to the ground and can only be deployed for specific applications.
It is evident that with the latest incarnations, robots are being integrated into various applications at an increasing rate. It has been estimated that the market for collaborative robots will reach a total of $3.3 billion by the year 2020.
Below are some of the advantages that are contributing to the high rise of robots in the automation process.
Due to its flexibility, assigning new tasks to a robot is quite easy. It is easy for a robot to perform the same task for a long period repetitively and still be able to perform a different task every day.
This flexibility makes the robot a better option when it comes to hiring a temporary employee. You will agree with me that it is more reasonable to hire a robot during production peak hours other than hiring a human employee. This is because of various reasons such as payments.
Good Correlation with Employees
Boring, unsafe, dirty, repetitive and monotonous tasks are assigned to robots giving humans a chance to work and concentrate on other tasks. Human employees are also given a chance to take on creative and higher-level functions.
Process optimization is the main goal of robotization. Process optimization simply means being able to achieve maximum results while incurring minimal costs. By using Robots, errors are greatly minimized.
Employees also get time to perform other tasks hence having increased productivity resulting in better-operating results.
As a result of their programmed nature, robots are usually pretty quick when it comes to performing particular tasks at a specific speed.
A survey revealed that robots still run strong even after being subjected to tedious tasks year after year. This makes them suitable to work in almost all major roles such as mundane tasks and all labor-intensive jobs.
Robots are greatly enhancing the human experience and in a few years to come, they will be cheaper to purchase and install.
Productivity is also about to greatly increase by the incorporation of robots as compared to traditional robots.