Automation, Amid Manufacturing Uncertainty, Hits The Accelerator
Automation – robots, sensors, simulation software among other things – is speeding up even while manufacturing faces uncertainty.
This week's Automate Show in Detroit is demonstrating various types of automation. The annual event alternates between Detroit and Chicago.
Manufacturing faces worker shortages. As a result, companies are looking for automation to take up that slack as well as improve efficiency.
Manufacturers, including automakers, are looking for more and faster.
'We're trying to find flexible solutions,' Paul Stephens, global strategy manager for Ford Motor Co., said at a Tuesday panel discussion at the show. The days 'of four-, five-, six-year automation projects is over,' he added.
'I see us in an acceleration period right now,' Mike Cicco, president and CEO of robot maker FANUC America, said at the same panel. 'The speed to deploy has changed…Once we have delivered it, it has to be installed very quickly.'
Over the past two decades, factory automation has expanded to include 3D printing; collaborative robots, which can be deployed near human workers; so-called digital twins, which help manufacturers simulate how machinery will be deployed in factories.
Simulation software in general has helped automation companies hit the ground running in factories.
'We're able to do the work before we get there,' FANUC's Cicco said. With the case of robots, their makers can 'pre-teach' the robots before they get to the factory floor, he said.
At a separate address on Tuesday, Deepu Talla, vice president of robotics and Edge AI of Nvidia, said how simulation software improves manufacturing.
'If you break something in simulation, it's OK,' he said.
On Tuesday, Automate included sessions that described how advancing technology is assisting vehicle manufacturing.
One session described how advancing manufacturing tech is helping auto factory paint shop operations.
A vehicle plant's paint shop typically is complicated. Automakers are looking to new manufacturing tech to improve efficiency and quality, particularly with inspecting paint quality.
'It's a very complicated issue,' said Ryan Odegaard, director of paint at General Motors Co. 'You're talking about layers of inspection services.'
GM has partnered with 3M Co., FANUC and other companies on systems to inspect, and correct, paint jobs on vehicles.
'Only when we worked as a team, did it work,' said Marcus Pelletier, a manufacturing executive at 3M.
'You don't know where the imperfections are going to be,' added Tom VanderPlas, senior staff engineer at FANUC America's paint shop division.
The technology involved has helped improve such operations. 'It's really driving consistency,' Odegaard said. 'We have highly automated factories.'
Despite the manufacturing uncertainty, automation is doing well based on the Automate Show.
'Automation is a good place to be but it's never been a better place to be,' said Kevin Barker, president of Beckhoff Automation LLC.
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