Manufacturing

Purchasing robots, CNC machines and other industrial equipment for manufacturing operations can be a difficult process, and one fraught with uncertainty, especially for small-to-medium manufacturers. The US’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) has some suggestions and best practices designed to support decision making and reduce the risk.

Trade conflicts, geopolitical tensions, and now the COVID-19 crisis, is putting global supply chain at risk, and as a result companies are expected to reverse the multi-decade trend of offshoring. As robotics and automation becomes more capable, cheaper, and easier to implement, the technology is likely to accelerate reshoring initiatives.

Despite the ongoing pandemic, robotics investment and acquisition activity did not slow down in August 2020, with funding flowing to autonomous vehicles, industrial automation, and drones.

Members of the ARM Institute, a public-private partnership of more than 250 member organizations that promote collaborative robotics and workforce development, will discuss the current state-of-the-art for robotics manufacturing, as well as what the future holds, during RoboBusiness Direct event on September 3rd, 2020.

Building on the success of the inaugural series, the RoboBusiness Direct Fall program will once again have robotics industry experts addressing critical robotics business development issues through an integrated series of online presentations and continuing media coverage and analysis.

Editor’s Note: Robotics Business Review’s coverage emphasizes innovation, including start-up companies (or ‘young’ companies). RBR “Start-Up Profiles” highlight individual start-up companies using a consistent, templated format that makes for quick, yet informed reading, that also simplifies comparative analysis. Veo Robotics – Company Profile City: Waltham State: Massachusetts Country: USA # of Employees: 49 URL: https://www.veobot.com/…

Robotics fundings, mergers, and acquisitions in July 2020 stayed at comparable levels with transactions from a year ago and June.

When inflexible automation collides with manufacturing trends requiring more flexibility, productivity suffers. Why? Manufacturing as currently practiced — with poor human-machine collaboration — is not sufficiently responsive to the long-term trends of shorter product life cycles and increasing product diversity.

Autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) have proven to increase the productivity and reduce the cost of warehouse automation operations. While the costs of AMRs continue to drop, even as their capabilities increase, there are often hidden, and sizable, costs associated with their deployment. Here’s what to look for, and how to mitigate their impact.

Robots and industrial automation enable disproportionate GDP gains, but are they resilient to disruptions and changing demands?

The emergence and rapid proliferation of collaborative robots have resulted in the proliferation of a new class of ‘lean’ integrators specially adapted to the needs of SMEs who wish to leverage automation. The lean integrator has evolved precisely to deliver robot installations that yield higher productivity at a lower price point, and that can be installed in a fraction of the time of a traditional robot work cell.

New research by MIT economist Daron Acemoglu shows that since 1987, automation has taken away jobs from lower-skill workers without being replaced by an equivalent number of labor-market opportunities.

In June 2020, investment and acquisition activity picked up a bit for autonomous vehicles, mobile robots, healthcare systems, and industrial automation.

Labor shortages and high levels of workplace injury and illness have always challenged the food manufacturing sector, especially meat producers. The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated the situation. Robotics automation provides a solution.

A new study co-authored by an MIT economist Daron Acemoglu shows firms that move quickly to use robots tend to add workers to their payroll, while industry job losses are more concentrated in firms that make this change more slowly.

Despite strong economic headwinds from global shutdowns in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, some funding and merger activity continued in April 2020, particularly in healthcare, transportation, and manufacturing.

LogisticsIQ expects the overall revenues from the Warehouse Automation Market to increase from US $13 billion in 2018 to reach US $27 billion by 2025, at a CAGR of 11.7% (2019 to 2025).

Contract manufacturer GMI Solutions evaluated mobile robotics implementation solutions using a formal 8-step process only to determine that their best option was to develop their own affordable, practical system, and launch a new company to commercialize it.

In 2019, overall robot market revenues experienced negative growth for the first time in many years affected by the global manufacturing downturn and reduced demand in major end industries such as automotive and electronics. However, the collaborative robot market still maintains a high growth rate of more than 30% (32.1% in revenue term and 31.3%…

Universal Robots takes a page from traditional industrial robotics suppliers, providing an opportunities roadmap for others in the expanding UR+ ecosystem.

As the COVID-19 pandemic slowed global manufacturing and trade, investments in robots, drones, and self-driving cars continued in March 2020, with both more shutdowns and an eventual recovery to come.

From heavy lifting arms to collaborative robots, manufacturing and other industries now have a variety of options, depending on their needs.

Modular robotics are currently a niche market, but the need for flexibility could propel demand, predicts one global market analyst.

The partnership between Air Automation Engineering and Epson Robots is intended to lead to better support for Epson’s automation products throughout the Upper Midwest.

Field robots, industrial automation, self-driving vehicles, and healthcare systems received funding in February 2020.