Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 35.62
November 29, 2017
…of Robotics (IFR), Japan is the world´s predominant industrial robot manufacturer. The production capacity of the Japanese suppliers has reached 153,000 units in 2016 – the highest level ever recorded. Today, Japan´s manufacturers deliver 52% of the global supply. The results were published ahead of the International Robot Exhibition (iREX) in Tokyo, November 29th - December 2nd 2017. “Japan is a highly robotized country where even robots are assembled by robots,”said Joe Gemma, president of IFR. “The statistics show that automation strongly boosts exports and domestic investments as well; robot sales in Japan increased by 10% to about 39,000 units…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 40.16
October 25, 2017
The Robotic Industries Association (RIA), North America’s robotics trade group, has signed an alliance partnership with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). OSHA has established alliances with a number of industry groups to share expertise and knowledge about safety practices in the industries involved. The OSHA/NIOSH/RIA Alliance will focus on communication and education about best practices in robot safety. “RIA has a long history of helping to keep workers safe around industrial robotics,” said Jeff Burnstein, president, RIA. “We developed the first American national robot safety standard, R15.06, in…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 3.80
May 05, 2017
…head of supply chain management research at ARC Advisory Group. “If you use a warehouse management system with radio frequency guns, you’re not executing processes with paper, you are doing things digitally. The same holds true if you’re using electronic data interchange, which also has been around a long time. What’s new today are things like network-based, end-to-end visibility solutions.” There are other enablers of digital supply chain management, say analysts and technology executives. At the crux of these advances is the ability to reflect and react to what’s going on in the real-world supply chain—to track the condition or…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 7.61
March 10, 2017
A 50-pound flying robot can be lethal. As drones swarm the U.S., regulators need convincing before they give Amazon, Google, and others permission for expanded use. Bloomberg Technology has a fascinating article titled “Crashing Drones Into Test Dummies for Safety” which clearly identifies how the small- and medium-sized drones flooding the U.S. market can seriously injure or even kill someone. Researchers at Virginia Tech - home to both a Federal Aviation Administration-designated test site for unmanned aircraft systems and a world-renowned injury biomechanics group - are developing methods to evaluate the risk posed by small unmanned aircraft to anyone on…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 22.48
February 06, 2017
…“Industry 4.0”, this era will be built on information-driven operations that optimize efficiency, capacity and innovation. It won’t happen overnight. It won’t be seismic. It starts incrementally – at the work cell level, then rolls up across the factory site and ultimately out across global operations. In many ways, it will be facilitated by software-driven robots that facilitate the bottoms-up approach that manufacturers and distributors need at this nascent stage in the revolution. Robotics investments must produce: ● no disruption to current operations ● no expensive and complex integration costs ● immediate and measurable ROI In the smart factory, the…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 37.40
February 03, 2017
Wasion Group is a manufacturer of smart metering, smart power distribution and energy management in China and international markets. The company produces 35 million units of various equipment annually, including many products in lower volumes. After deploying collaborative robots, (Rethink Robotics), the company has optimized production to meet changing market demands and expedite delivery. The new robot was first used on an assembly line for manufacturing single-phase energy meters. They are now used at multiple workstations including loading electric meter boxes, PCBA loading and assembling, power testing and code scanning, and carrier loading and assembly. The robot features compliant motion…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 14.34
December 23, 2016
Mergers, acquisitions and partnerships Dematic acquired by KION Group $2.1 billion deal creates a unique combination of traditional and automated materials handling solutions. Honeywell to acquire Intelligrated for $1.5 billion Deal marks the second acquisition of a leading systems integration firm in the past two weeks. JDA announces $570 million equity investment from Blackstone and New Mountain Capital Investment to support research and development, including SaaS-based supply chain and omni-channel retail solutions. FORTE and Power Automation Systems rebranded under Swisslog WDS Swisslog Warehouse and Distribution Solutions acquired Forte in April 2015 and PAS in April 2016. KION brand Egemin Automation…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 31.39
November 18, 2016
…been made, launching the first fleet of autonomous transport robots in everyday operation. Autonomous driving seems to be the next big thing in the auto industry but while it will certainly be helpful on the road, it can also help out in the manufacturing process. An initial fleet of ten self-driving Smart Transport Robots (STR) is transporting components through logistics at the Wackersdorf plant. What is unique is that the self-driving transport robot does not need floor-mounted induction loops for navigation, but moves freely through the logistics hall, powered sustainably by pre-used batteries from the BMW i3 and is able…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 21.09
July 01, 2016
…Solutions We now offer SCARA, Parallel, Articulated, and Mobile robot solutions. These best-in-class industrial robots have been integrated with Omron’s family of sensors, safety components and award-winning NX/NJ series machine automation controllers to simplify the implementation of robots in a production environment. So, what does this mean for our customers? The wide and deep range of our products open design flexibility to build electrical panels all the way up to completely automated production lines that include robotics. We engage the full scope of automation, from device to machine, to line, to factory, to enterprise to a complete value chain. Our…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 33.11
April 28, 2016
…according to Robotic Industries Association (RIA), the industry’s trade group. A total of 7,406 robots valued at approximately $402 million were ordered from North American companies during the first quarter of 2016. The number of units ordered in the first three months of 2016 is a new record among opening quarters, growing 7% over the same period in 2015. Order revenue, however, decreased by 8% in the first quarter. Robot shipments also set a new opening quarter record, with 7,125 robots valued at $448 million being shipped to North American customers. This represents growth of 2% in units and 21%…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 7.48
April 13, 2016
…FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC), where finalist teams enter industrial-sized robots they have designed, programmed and built in detailed, demanding contests against like-minded competitors. More than 80,000 high school students, ages 14-18, on more than 3,100 teams throughout the world participated in FRC events this year. As strategic alliance partners of FIRST, the International Society of Automation (ISA) and its umbrella organization, the Automation Federation, actively support FIRST’s educational programs and mission, and encourage more young people to pursue careers that fully utilize their STEM skills and interests. A select group of practicing automation professionals—volunteering on behalf of ISA—will be present…
Found in Robotics News & Content, with a score of 15.83
April 01, 2016
…the companies monitoring these new competitors is VSP Optics Group, the optics lab arm of VSP Global. With $263 million in revenue in 2014, it is one of the largest manufacturers of lenses for glasses, serving some 30,000 independent optometrists around the country. As VSP took note of a changing market, it began to ask how it could speed up the delivery of a new pair of glasses to its customers, says Joe Maris, the senior vice president of lab operations for VSP Optics Group. The answer was a $37 million investment in an 80,000-square-foot, state-of-the art production lab in…
