“It’s been more than 10 years since Universal Robots sold the world’s first commercially viable collaborative robot, but the cobot market is still largely untapped," said Shepherd. "By making January National Cobot Awareness Month, we want to send a signal to manufacturers that cobots are here to solve the monotonous tasks they simply can’t staff. With an average payback period of only six to eight months due to increased productivity, quality, and consistency, they can make their investment back and then some before year end if they start now."
According to UR, cobots can help manufacturers and their employees improve their health and well-being, improve their productivity, broaden their horizons.
While cobots’ built-in safety systems that allow them to work side-by-side with employees was the defining feature of collaborative robots, UR has expanded that definition to include user-friendliness, simplified set-up and flexibility for easy re-deployment. UR cobots allow employees to move from repetitive, low-value tasks to higher-value activities that increase productivity and quality as well as work conditions.
"We believe that being collaborative is just as much about being accessible, lowering the automation barrier by placing robots within reach of manufacturers who never thought they could deploy robots due to cost and complexity," said Shepherd.
One such manufacturer was Toolcraft, a machine shop in Seattle, WA, that found itself at a crossroad when a large order prompted the company to add a third shift for 24/7 production. “Nobody wants to run on third shift around here," said Steve Wittenberg, director of operations at Toolcraft. "When you put an ad out, you’re not getting very many responses. If we looked at just the robot hardware alone, that appeared to be a more cost-effective solution. But once we started factoring in the savings on not having to erect a safety cage – and the time saved on the ease of use, avoiding a lot of complex programming – Universal Robots ended up being the right solution.”
