INDUSTRY FOCUS Renewable Energy
Optimising lights-out manufacturing
Sustainability is a huge consideration across today’s manufacturing environment, as business owners strive to adopt ‘smart’ manufacturing principles: fully-connected factories that can operate with minimal human intervention whilst addressing considerations such as increased throughput, improving product quality and increased resource efficiencies
L
ights-out manufacturing is still widely underutilised, although its benefi ts when implemented within mass production are vast.
Pressures upon manufacturing today, primarily driven by increasing consumer demand and e-commerce, necessitate an increased level of operational fl exibility so that the supply versus demand balance can be maintained. Additional challenges arising from Brexit and Covid have impacted labour availability and are encouraging manufacturers to re-evaluate their process chains, encompassing sustainable principles as a means to operate effi ciently and maintain competitive advantage. In reality, robots are more effi cient than humans. They don’t need to be kept warm or cool, further reducing energy usage across utility resources. And, in reality, robots are not taking jobs. Robots are a complementary technology and require highly-skilled personnel to oversee them. Lights-out production can support high- output tasks, those which might involve repetitive motion, or consist of processes that might be deemed too stressful for a human to undertake over a long period. For scenarios such as this, satisfying throughput and removing risk, automated robots within a lights-out scenario can be left to run, in many cases in collaboration with other manufacturing technologies, such as CNC machines, plastic injection moulding machines, or conveyor systems. By default, robots are designed
to address tasks repetitively, with an enhanced level of accuracy and repeatability, when compared to humans. Operator error leads to increased waste, which in turn can aff ect revenues; in addition to the costs associated with disposing of large amounts of waste, there are also environmental costs to consider. Attitudes towards sustainability and environmental responsibility are diversifying, with many customers sourcing manufacturers who consider the impact of their practices upon the environment. By streamlining operations, manufacturers can create an effi cient process that ensures energy and material usage is kept only to the necessary.
40 October 2021 | Automation
Maintaining competitive advantage is at the forefront of any business agenda. What can be done to diff erentiate ourselves from other manufacturers? Lean manufacturing: maximising productivity while simultaneously minimising waste or anything that doesn’t add value that the customer is willing to pay for, are applied across the industry, with optimisation a key component of the method of manufacture.
Lights-out and lean go hand in hand,
reducing costs and driving effi ciencies. The technologies that are available that support both principles are vast and constantly evolving, aligned with market demand. Industrial robots reduce cycle times, through greater speed and execution of tasks, and with models being produced that operate with lower energy consumption versus legacy technologies, the cost of operation is reduced. Further effi ciencies can also be applied,
through data capture and analysis. Whilst simple, repeatable tasks are the best fi t for automated robotics, there is always room to fi ne-tune those processes that might run as part of a lights-out operation. Small scale or complex tasks may not deliver the same value as larger production runs, and therefore not benefi t within a lights-out scenario, though that is the advantage of automation within the context of a lights- out operation; the ability to address those applications that undertake large-capacity, low-complexity tasks. And this can in theory enable a manufacturer to accomplish more and take on additional orders thanks
to the extra production/machining hours that lights-out might deliver. Output is increased and the cost of production is decreased, the savings of which can then be passed onto the customer. It isn’t just the manufacturing process of
products in which robots can be applied within a lights-out scenario. Automation can be utilised across the lifecycle of the product, from product delivery to its eventual recycling or repurposing, in response to a bottleneck currently facing the industry, and a focus upon the circular economy. Waste recycling can be a tedious, and dangerous task, and volumes of waste being generated both nationally and globally is expected to grow faster than the rate of the population by 2050. To address volumes of materials for processing, labour shortages and the nature of the materials, lights-out automation is a good fi t, providing a constant delivery of materials processing.
The decision to utilise automated robotic
processes shouldn’t be taken hastily. In-depth process chain qualifi cation is required to understand just where value can be added: don’t automate for the sake of automating. Understand the benefi ts of the technology and, more importantly, what the returns might be that satisfy both your operational and sustainability considerations.
CONTACT:
KUKA
www.kuka.com
automationmagazine.co.uk
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