by Gary Mintchell | May 12, 2021 | Automation, Robots
One of the dirtier applications has come to the cobot world—welding. Here is a smartphone app that interfaces to a Universal Robotics Cobot with an attached Miller welding system to transform it into a welding machine.
Hirebotics’ Cobot Welder, Powered by Beacon, is a complete, user-friendly collaborative robot (cobot) welding system that enables painless automated welding deployments. “The Cobot Welder is a major leap forward in easy-to-use welding automation that combines industrial grade robot welding functionality with consumer level ease-of-use and a phenomenal price point,” says Rob Goldiez, Cofounder and CEO, Hirebotics.
Complete and ready to go right out of the box, Cobot Welder provides all the hardware and software required to get started on an automated welding deployment, including: a UR10e collaborative robot, a Miller Invision 352 MPa cobot package, a Tregaskiss robotic torch, a mobile cart with a standard 5/8” diameter on 2” center hole pattern, and Hirebotics’ Cobot Welder smartphone application.
“With Cobot Welder, Hirebotics has managed to eliminate the pain points from robot welding system deployments. At the heart of the system is our Cobot Welder smartphone app, which turns welders into robot programmers in a matter of minutes, no pendant required,” says Mitch Dupon, Director of Business Development at Hirebotics. “By reducing the time taken to teach new parts by as much 60%, Cobot Welder reduces downtime, improves welding quality and productivity and ensures painless automated welding deployments. I’m excited to talk about this and the other productivity benefits provided by Cobot Welder at the forthcoming launch.”
“The welding profession is experiencing a labor crisis. The average age for skilled welders is 55, most are likely to retire within 10 years, and younger people aren’t entering the profession in sufficient numbers to sustain industry demand,” Joe Campbell, Universal Robots’ Senior Manager of Applications Development & Strategic Marketing, North America says. “There is an urgent need for collaborative welding systems that are safe to use around human beings and can be used to support expert human welders by taking over the tedious and unergonomic aspects of the welding process,” says Campbell.
by Gary Mintchell | May 11, 2021 | Data Management, Manufacturing IT, Operations Management
ThinkIQ introduced itself to me just a couple of months ago, and I set aside some time to talk with an acquaintance from the industrial software market Niels Anderson. https://themanufacturingconnection.com/2021/02/manufacturing-saas-platform-tracks-material-flow-not-assets/ The company published a couple of news items this month. One announces an extension to the product line; the second announces a partnership with CESMII for a smart manufacturing initiative in the poultry processing industry.
VisualOps Solutions to Suite of Products
ThinkIQ announced VisualOps, which is designed to help organizations obtain easy access to data from a material view, new visibility, and a path towards Industry 4.0 Manufacturing.
ThinkIQ VisualOps was created as a second step for companies on the path to Industry 4.0 Manufacturing. The benefits include having data standardized and available in one location, empowering manufacturing leaders, plant managers, process and data engineers, and operators, by allowing them to explore their manufacturing and supply chain data within the context of their business. The new function can also start the process of creating alerts and notifications that may bring problems to immediate attention.
“The addition of VisualOps allows customers to start the journey of monetizing their manufacturing and supply chain data using an Industry 4.0 Platform that will help them achieve their digital transformation goals,” said Niels Andersen, CTO and CPO of ThinkIQ. “This product will help organizations obtain the benefits of Industry 4.0 and lead them on the path to Smart Manufacturing.”
Some of the additional benefits of ThinkIQ VisualOps include:
- Ability to move companies past raw data to being able to explore, compare, and be aware of the data — with standardized metrics and views to bring wide visibility and context to what is currently just digital bits.
- Allows organizations to harness the power of what are mostly disconnected existing data streams from IoT, IIoT, HMIs, PLCs, CRM, MES, digitized manual data, and partner data, all into one single location.
- Includes on-premise gateways & connectors to centralize the data and securely send this data to the cloud, and most clients don’t need to add any new hardware or software to their existing environment.
- Software includes sourcing existing data from Automation, IoT and IIoT, CRM, and other digital captures, and also includes an equipment profile library, equipment modeling, manufacturing process layout, trending, standardized dashboards, and basic limits & notifications.
ThinkIQ’s SaaS Manufacturing cloud-based platform simplifies the creation of web-based applications and leverages the strengths of the Internet of Things, Big Data, Data Science, Semantic Modeling and Machine Learning. The platform collects data across the operation (existing and IIoT sensors) and leverages AI, ML to provide actionable real time insights (e.g., identify correlations and root causes, traceability and yield issues, etc.). It creates a new level of capability beyond what independent disconnected operating environments can provide today.
CESMII and ThinkIQ To Transform Global Food Leader’s Poultry Processing
CESMII selected ThinkIQ for inclusion in its co-funded Smart Manufacturing Innovation Projects. This project aims to transform poultry processing operations at one of the world’s largest food companies, and recognized leader in protein. The project seeks to quantify the impact of variability in the supply chain and the processing of chicken by-products and understand the resulting impact of yield for four product streams, including: bone meal, feather meal, chicken meal, and blood meal.
ThinkIQ will utilize the CESMII Smart Manufacturing Innovation Platform and create Profiles that optimize yield and material utilization on the food company’s poultry processing line. This will enable decisions based on real-time constraints in material flows, manufacturing operations, and energy consumption in a protein-based food processing environment. This project will demonstrate increased operational efficiencies that can be extended to other food processing and energy-intensive industries.
“Delivering value through interoperability and scalability is essential,” says Doug Lawson, CEO of ThinkIQ. “We are leveraging the CESMII SM Innovation Platform to avoid implementing yet another information island on the plant floor, thereby reducing cost and complexity, and facilitating rapid return on investment.”
ThinkIQ’s ability to track material flow through the entire process from “farm to fork” will provide the company with a unique view of their entire poultry processing, allowing them to gain visibility into real-time variance in their manufacturing process. This enables them to quantify and reduce impact of variance improving yield, provide feedback in “plant time” to reduce off-spec, waste, etc. and present profit enhancement opportunities throughout the project.
by Gary Mintchell | May 10, 2021 | Productivity
Slow down
You move too fast
You gotta make
The morning last, just
Kickin’ down
The cobble stones
Looking for fun
And feeling groovy.
Paul Simon, 59th Street Bridge Song
Henry Ford imagined a new way to build cars. Productivity per person in manufacturing increased tremendously in the 20th Century and prosperity followed.
By the 1980s continuing until today, much work is done by “knowledge workers” sitting in front of computer screens. No one (or very few) are imagining new ways to do this work. Productivity lags, people are frustrated, work never ends thanks to the always-on mobile phone.
Well, one person is thinking about it. Cal Newport. I am in the midst of his latest book, A World Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload. His previous best seller changed the way many of us thought about work–Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World.
You can sort of summarize the latest book with a quote from a 50s-60s comic strip by Walt Kelly, Pogo. One time, Pogo, the title character–an opossum in the Okefenokee Swamp, said, “The hurrieder I go, the behinder I get.”
In this latest book, I’ve gotten to a section where, after discussing Henry Ford and increasing productivity making Model Ts, brought up the story of a German entrepreneur Lasse Rheingans. He looked at the way people worked in his small company. He then told the employees–you will work 5-hour days. Come in about 8 and leave about 1. When you leave, you’re done. No more work. No more checking emails. No more on-call. You should be able to get all the important work for the company done with 5 5-hour days per week.
How?
No social media during those five hours. Severely restricted meetings. Severely restricted email checking. Two years down the pike, the concept is still working. This sounds a bit like the terrible approach that Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson of Basecamp just tried. But they didn’t reduce hours or work with employees (see below). Just a sharply written blog post to the people.
He did hire some outside coaches to help the employees through withdrawal. They showed that it was in their best interest to not check all those distracting apps. They also encouraged stress reduction through mindfulness and meditation. And physical health through exercise such as Yoga.
Rheingans’s goal was for everyone to slow down; to approach their work more deliberately and with less frantic action; to realize that they were’ running all the time without getting anywhere.’
Cal Newport
I bet that no matter what we’re up to, this is sound advice.
by Gary Mintchell | May 10, 2021 | Automation, Motion Control
You will usually see items related to software or IoT or management here. However my grandson was showing me the construction of his model, remote-control racing car yesterday giving me a soft spot for small motion control. OK, maybe a stretch, but this announcement from PMD caught my eye. Lots of projects could use something like this.
Performance Motion Devices, Inc. (PMD), a leading provider of motion control ICs, modules, and boards, announced today the availability of ION/CME N-Series Digital Drives, new members of the ION Digital Drive family that provide high-performance motion control, network connectivity and amplification. N-Series ION digital drives feature a patented, ultra-rugged PCB-mountable package with three power output levels – 75, 300, and 1,000 watts. All ION/CME N-Series Digital Drives support Brushless DC, DC Brush, and step motors.
ION/CME N-Series Digital Drives provide profile generation, servo compensation, stall detection, field oriented control (FOC), electronic camming, and many other motion control functions. Additional features include support for Ethernet, CAN, serial, and SPI (Serial Peripheral Interface) communications, and support for quadrature, sin/cos, and BiSS-C encoder formats.
Benefits of ION/CME N-Series Digital Drives include:
- Revolutionary Reduction in Development Time – To create a complete ready-to-go control solution, engineers only have to select their desired motor type and power level and install on a simple interconnect board with their choice of connectors and form factor.
- Flexible Connection Options – ION N-Series ION Digital Drives are easy to plug in and connect, supporting a range of communication interfaces including CAN, Ethernet, RS232, RS485, and SPI.
- Small Package, Big Power – Despite their small size, measuring only 1.48”x1.48”x0.66” (38 mm x 38 mm x 17 mm), N-Series ION Drives can drive Brushless DC, DC Brush, and step motors with up to a Kilowatt of continuous power output.
- Fully Programmable – At the core of every ION/CME N-Series Digital Drive is PMD’s powerful motion control language called C-Motion®. This award-winning language gives engineers the ability to write code and share across all their machine designs.
“Beyond their impressive technical features, the N-Series ION drives have a revolutionary all-in one design approach that allows the creation of fully custom multi-axis motion control boards in weeks, rather than months or even years,” states Chuck Lewin, CEO of Performance Motion Devices, Inc.
ION/CME N-Series Digital Drives are available immediately and are priced from $209 in quantity depending on motor type controlled and power level. For more information on ION/CME N-Series Digital Drives and Developer Kits.
by Gary Mintchell | May 7, 2021 | Manufacturing IT, Operations Management
Out of a conversation I had during Hannover Messe, I received this application using an AI platform for optimization. You can head over to its website for more information.
Canvass Analytics Inc., (“Canvass AI”), a supplier AI for the industrial sector, announced that a major food ingredient manufacturer is using the Canvass AI platform to significantly reduce its plant’s energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions. In just one year of using the platform, the industrial company has reduced its annual energy costs by 4% and the plant’s carbon emissions by more than 9 Million pounds.
As part of the North American ingredient company’s drive to achieve cost efficiencies and reduce the environmental footprint of their operations, the manufacturer implemented the Canvass AI Platform. Canvass AI empowers industrial engineers to harness the power of AI to make data-driven decision in their day-to-day operations 12x faster than other platforms.
“This world leading manufacturer is using Canvass AI to address three of their top operational challenges: the need to reduce costs, optimize OEE, and reduce their environmental footprint. With Canvass AI, the operations team are able to use AI first-hand to make data-driven decisions that keep their operations within specification, ensuring throughput is maintained while reducing waste,” commented Humera Malik, CEO of Canvass AI.
“What we are seeing is that AI is ready and industrial companies are driving impact with AI today. However, in order to scale AI, companies need to have a clear business outcome in mind, automate a process that is standardized with good quality data, and leverage a platform that is purpose-built and secure. AI, when combined with a culture dedicated to continuous improvement, will enable the fourth industrial revolution driving zero-touch operations and zero defects,” commented Sachin Lulla, Global Digital Strategy and Transformation Leader, Ernst & Young.
