Universal Robots Cobots Handle Mission-Critical Inspection for Automotive Manufacturer
Comprehensive Logistics needed to ensure that every engine sub-assembly it produces is fully seated and locked. If there is a loose connection, it can cause an intermittent or complete loss of the power steering, says Mike O’Keefe, assembly superintendent. “It’s a life-threatening failure mode, so we need to make sure those clips are locked into place with 100 percent confidence.” Their initial stationary multi-camera system couldn’t position cameras into tight spots and wasn’t meeting repeatability needs. The company researched alternatives, and found Universal Robots. “We quickly realized that this was a cost-effective, light-duty robot that could move a vision camera to the right positions safely and repeatably,” explains O’Keefe. “The dexterity of the Universal Robot enables it to get underneath where the mission-critical points are, and could be 100 percent repeatable.” The UR cobots proved to be the perfect solution, complete with a quick payback. “Looking at just the robot hardware, the ROI was probably less than four months,” he says.
Transcript
00:00:02 [Music] [Applause] comprehensive logistics is the number one logistics and contract manufacturing provider to two of North America's largest automotive enterprises the Ohio based company runs fast-paced suspension powertrain and interior component assembly lines leaving no room for error our customers speak quality constantly
00:00:30 and when they come to us we speak the same language everything is just in time just in sequence and that's what we do as a company comprehensive logistics has one sub-assembly operation where the final check of the quality required us to validate a electrical connector was locked in position so we had a we have a system in place before where we had stationary
00:00:57 cameras in place that it served a purpose but they couldn't get into some tight spots they weren't nearly as repeatable and I don't think that the data was as pure comprehensive logistics had the opportunity to choose universal robot because it gave us a personalized system it was a lightweight system that interacted well with humans we didn't need to have the cumbersome light
00:01:20 curtains that are required with some of the standard robotic systems in the industry the inspection if it's done by a human is about 80 percent efficient so Universal robot provided us the opportunity to strongly position ourselves get 100 percent quality the dexterity of the universal robot is such that it can get pretty much anywhere on that assembly that we need to get there
00:01:44 are two plug-ins for the wire harness and they have two locking devices if there is an intermittent connection or it's not connected and locked into place it is a loss of power steering which the operator of the vehicle is in danger it's a life-threatening failure mode so that we need to 100% of the time make sure that those clips are are locked if the inspection fails you are able to
00:02:06 interact with the universal robot and go in and fix the issue the return on investment is probably about seven months we had a turnkey operation that cluesive Lee had an integrator included the payback for the hardware of four Universal robots in itself would be probably less than four months we have not had any issues with the robot since
00:02:26 its implementation aside from possibly adjusting some of the images on the camera unrelated to the programming of the robot the universal robot provides comprehensive logistics real-time quick change kind of ability if new requirements were to be given to us by our customer or different inspection criteria then it's very easy to add inspection points to the process
00:02:50 if we lose power in the facility or there's some lift even if it's interrupted by human interaction you basically just need to reinitiate the robot and start it and it continues to go from its stopping process we could potentially replicate this process on other lines if the customer has mission-critical inspection points that need to be 100% quality it's like family
00:03:13 it's here before I am you know during the day and it's here when I leave so I mean it's it's a part of the system and that we just take it take the robot on as a another employee basically [Music]