Automation heads for Lego Land

Citation

Young, K. (1999), "Automation heads for Lego Land", Industrial Robot, Vol. 26 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/ir.1999.04926eaa.002

Automation heads for Lego Land

Automation heads for Lego Land

Ken Young

Keywords Robots, Automation

Over the years the automotive industry has led the way in the application of industrial robots. It is therefore important that the industrial automation industry should keep one eye on the way that the automotive industry is developing and to try to keep one step ahead.

The global over-capacity in the car industry is driving prices down at an incredible rate, while increasing the use of automation required to remain competitive. This is in turn resulting in a large expansion in the robot market but the unit cost of a robot is being forced to an all time low. Industry pundits are not predicting that this increase in the size of the robot market is sustainable, however. The age where robots were installed to build car A and were scrapped when car A was no longer being built have gone. The reuse of lines and automation equipment is increasing rapidly as the build life of vehicles is dropping well below the operational life of a robot. Before long the major OEMs will cost a project where equipment has a residual value at the end of the project. This will increase further the use of robots into areas where they are only cost-effective when costed over extended periods.

Increasingly the car industry will move towards lines that are not dedicated to one model. This will allow cars to be produced for the local market, perhaps even with specific features available only from that factory. This will force an increase in the flexibility possible from lines and will drive the use of tool-changers etc. into mainstream use. The emphasis within the industry will change from keeping the line producing as it is, to continually changing the line to produce the mix of products that will be required tomorrow. This will place a premium on robots that are easy to work with and reprogram. The use of fieldbus technology will prevail everywhere in order to eliminate the need for rewiring in order to modify cells. This will even replace category 4 safety systems as programmable safety controllers and standards such as safetyBUS-p become firmly established. Conformance to these standards will become essential for any automation supplier wishing to sell into the industry.

There is an increase in the amount of subassembly work being carried out at tier one suppliers. This is driving an increasing amount of automation into these companies. In order to justify the cost of installation these companies require flexible cells that can be retooled to produce a whole range of products for different customers. In response to this many vendors are selling turnkey cells for applications from MIG welding to machining. This is becoming an important area of the market and will increase in importance over the next few years.

Moves to reduce the investment cost for a new model will allow structures such as the Fanuc Flextool to replace dedicated fixtures. It will also force a move towards standardisation and modularisation of tooling to enable fast and cheap modifications to be made to facilities. Automation technology and lego are fast converging.

Given the similarity between building and running automation systems and the train sets we all love, it is perhaps surprising that there is a shortage of people with automation skills. The biggest threat that the industry faces is its poor public image, leading to a failure to attract young people into it. Perhaps if television could be persuaded to change robot wars into something more closely resembling real application of robots, we could start to build a more positive image.