DIGITAL ENTERPRISE


From healthcare to manufacturing, flexible automation through advanced robotics is providing the thread that ties the digital world together


Robots: I


n today’s digital world, many consumers are increasingly demanding goods which meet their personal needs. Deloitte’s 2019 whitepaper Made-to-order: The Rise of Mass Personalisation reported that in some sectors (clothing, furniture, jewellery) over 50 per cent of consumers expressed


an interest in purchasing personalised products. Many companies are responding to this by producing online


tools that allow consumers to design what they buy. People can create their own shirts and sofas, making sure they get exactly the right features and dimensions to suit their requirements. Yet most manufacturers are not set up to manage bespoke


orders. Constrained by expensive machines designed to do very specific jobs, when they do make changes to production runs, this often involves changing the set-up of machines, designing and making new tooling and swapping programs and materials, all of which adds costs and affects productivity. According to automatic manufacturing specialist ABB, flexible


automation strategies achieved using robotic technology are designed from the ground up so it is easy to make changes to products, whether in design, volume, capacity or capability.


10 /// Testing & Test Houses /// December 2019


Taking automation be


FLEXIBLE AUTOMATION Automatically changing tooling, materials and programming, flexible automation eliminates much of the work involved in swapping from one product to the next. Meeting the pressure to offer more bespoke products, it gets manufacturers closer to the ideal of a batch size of one. According to ABB, UK manufacturers that have implemented


flexible automation are enjoying greater productivity and flexibility, as well as ensuring the high quality that their customers demand. One UK company, Boomf, introduced a robotic cutting cell to


meet the growing orders of its marshmallows, upon which customers can print their choice of photos. Raising productivity, the robotic cell has given Boomf the flexibility to respond to other gaps in the market and led to a 600 per cent growth in business.


COPING WITH THE RISE IN E-COMMERCE There’s an upsurge in robotic automation used in logistics applications too. Contributing factors include the rise of e- commerce and the trend for mass customisation.


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