Applications of cobots in manufacturing

Globally, manufacturing is one of the most vital sectors of industry, accounting for 16% of business investments and employing an impressive 2.6M workers across the United Kingdom. With this in mind, it’s no surprise that businesses are hard at work exploring how they can increase their outputs and get a bigger slice of a sector that contributes so significantly to the economy and productivity of the UK.

Where can cobots help in a manufacturing setting?

Astech helps businesses to reach their business goals through the smart integration of collaborative robots, like our next generation of Robotic Lab Assistants, and below, we’re going to talk about the core applications of cobots in manufacturing.

1) Welding

Utilising cobots for welding is an efficient way to improve the safety of any manufacturing space. Ideal for welding anything from intricate components to larger parts, cobots are popular on automotive, consumer electronics, furniture, and appliance assembly lines where repetitive welding is necessary.

2) Painting

Detailed tasks like painting aren’t off the cards - cobots have articulated, multi-axis arms that can be programmed and calibrated to paint small or large surfaces. They work particularly well on automobile and product assembly lines, where individual components or structures need full coverage.

3) Picking and Packing

Cobots are especially useful at repetitive, laborious tasks like picking, packing, and palletising. Able to move at speed without faltering, they greatly cut down production times and are an optimal way to utilise space on the floor of any production facility.

5) Material Handling

Cobots are suitable for handling and transporting of materials across workspaces, with advanced cobots like our RLA being agile enough to traverse different terrains, slopes, and to even open doors to access different areas. Outside of transporting materials, cobot can load and unload machines and move raw materials to different stations, enhancing the flow of production overall.

6) Quality Control

Advanced vision capabilities like tag calibration, CAD match, and box picking vision mean the right kind of cobots are perfect for conducting high volumes of quality control.

They can conduct controlled tests in the manufacturing environment at scale, removing the chance of human error for higher accuracy. Deploying cobots as part of a quality control system also reduces errors, improving the levels of waste produced by your manufacturing facility.

For more information about cobots, you can read our guide on what cobots are and how they can be used in more general applications.

Future-proof your facility with cobots

The uses for cobots in manufacturing are boundless, and when deployed strategically, they can completely transform any production environment. If you’re eager to discover how cobots could be integrated into your processes, get in touch with the Astech team.