Robot arms are getting
everywhere…
Recent developments are opening new opportunities and
catapulting the industrial robot arm into a journey around the
production environment.
R
obots undoubtably take the
drudgery out of many repetitive
manufacturing, packaging
and processing tasks. Engineers are
generally fascinated by the idea of
improving production processes
and keen to integrate robots, so the
decision as to whether one is used
or not boils down to economics;
operators want to see a good case
made for the return on investment
before giving the green light.
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Applications using proprietary
robotics solutions such as the
MELFA RV articulated arm and RH
series SCARA robots from Mitsubishi
Electric are now commonplace in
many production facilities, usually
in pick-and-place or light assembly
applications. Breaking established
boundaries on the cost and
availability of a mainstream robot
solution however is moving the
goalposts on that final cost versus
return decision.