TECHNOLOGY REPORT | VACUUM & MANUAL MANIPULATORS
SUCTION CONTROL
With the advent of ‘cobots’, automated technology is becoming more advanced than ever before. Jenny Eagle gets to grips with the latest vacuum and manual handling equipment in manufacturing.
in cobots and integration of vacuum generation for handling technology, valves, and safety components directly into grippers, we take a look at the latest miniaturization and Industry 4.0 capabilities. According to the UK Government HSE
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(Health & Safety Executive) figures, manual handling is responsible for more than a third of all injuries resulting in three or more days absence. More than half of all workdays lost to work-related health problems involve injured muscle, bone or connecting tissue, collectively known as musculoskeletal disorders (MSD). ”MSD is the greatest health and safety challenge for Europe”. Over 40 million EU workers are affected by MSD. These injuries (accidents not included) cost employers over €385 million or between 0.5% and 2% of the Gross National Product,” a significant burden on the EU economy”. Vacuum handling systems are typically
used to assist with jobs that previously would have been done manually such as lifting and positioning boxes or sacks. The systems typically feature a swinging arm jib crane, with a vacuum-based manipulator attached, moved manually by the operator to position the lifting attachment onto the load, and then to move the load itself. They can also be used for picking up loads that are hard to pick up using standard systems, often because they are solid sheets of marble, metal, glass or similar materials, and so don’t have a place where a bracket for a hook can be fitted. The loads can also be fragile and need
ith a continuous growing trend in automation, further driven by e-commerce, a rise
R Lifting cheese blocks with Piab’s piGRIP suction cups.
gentle handling, by using suction cups and a vacuum system rather than grasping the load from the sides and underneath. Piab talks to Hoist about the general
trend across all applications, and the quest for energy efficiency, while we also look at Schmalz and Zimmer Groups latest collaboration on Match – a multi-functional end-of-arm platform, and the launch of Palamatic’s Pal-Trac Cleanroom Monorail Hoist earlier this year. With the evolution of Industry 4.0, the rise in ‘Collaborative Robots’, otherwise known as “cobots”, machinery can work even closer with humans than ever before to perform their tasks. “Indeed, unlike their more isolated
counterparts, cobots are intentionally built to physically interact with humans in a shared workspace and while this term may be new to you cobots aren’t actually new. The first examples emerged in the mid 1990s from university research projects and the General Motors (GM) Robotics
center in which humans would provide the power to make the machines move while the cobots would provide the control and steering to place objects with precision,” reports Forbes. “In this way, humans were safe because they controlled the power of the robot while gaining all the advantages in assistive capabilities that the machine would provide. Instead of replacing humans with
autonomous counterparts, cobots augment and enhance human capabilities with super strength, precision, and data capabilities so that they can do more and provide more value to the organization.
Piab, established in 1951, is continuously
evolving its automation through progressive gripping, lifting, and moving solutions and even more so when it joined Patricia Industries, part of Investor AB in 2018. “Over the years we have seen a continuously growing trend in automation, which continues until today and received a further push by the pandemic driving
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