Collaborative robots that can be flexibly applied to a small-volume but large-variety production line, focus on human-robot collaboration and facilitate smart manufacturing are emerging.
Compared to other industries, the level of automation in the automotive industry is much higher. The latest report from Kenneth Research predicts that the shipment and sales revenue brought by collaborative robots in the automotive industry will increase by 43% every year by 2022.
The well-known Japanese car manufacturer adopts Techman robot to process the final quality check of all detailed assembly inspections. Techman Robot helped the customer to install the “next generation smart inspection system” utilizing a customized stand including four Techman collaborative robots. Besides the built-in smart vision, 36 external front and rear cameras were also installed. Moreover, each collaborative robot is equipped with three types of lenses, including short, middle and long. The Japanese car manufacturer mentioned that among their global production lines, this is the only one using the automated optical inspection (AOI) system and AI smart inspection solution. The ceiling-mounted arm can move inside/outside the car elastically to inspect items including wipers, horn, seats, seat belts, steering wheel, dashboard, center console, remote control, fog lamps, and stickers, etc. All inspection data can be photographed and saved to enable quality traceability as well as guarantee the outgoing quality.
The leading Japanese car manufacturer commented that TMflow, the innovative and user-friendly interface of Techman Robot, allows the well-trained insider to quickly program based on different car types or demands without asking the system integrator to come to the factory, and thus achieves a significant reduction of time, manpower and cost. Meanwhile, the built-in smart vision allows the customer to record all inspection data more efficiently to improve quality and implement data archiving and traceability which cannot be realized by manual inspection.
Since 2018, Techman Robot has become an officially approved supplier of “Continental,” another world-famous manufacturer in the automotive industry, and started to improve the automated process in its signature factory located in Budapest, Hungary. This factory mainly produces telematics control units (TCU) for car manufacturers. Techman Robot not only optimized the pick and place application, but also enabled the customer to save the cost of installing a third party camera with the built-in smart vision. Moreover, the customer could also swiftly copy the program to different stations through “TM Landmark” to significantly reduce the time of training a collaborative robot to recognize the position and object. The “Plug and Play” gripper can run tests quickly to reflect the project performance in time. Techman robot, with the built-in smart vision, is the best choice to meet the smart manufacturing demand of highly flexible production in the automotive industry.
