Kathy Walker, founder and director of eKentucky Advanced Manufacturing Institute (eKAMI), discusses the origins of the program, experiences of students and their employers (including AutoGuide) and the workforce landscape pre- and post-Covid. Walker outlines plans to replicate eKAMI's model and offers lessons for other employers and communities striving to optimize their workforces. “Employers are calling left and right,” Walker says, noting that the next class graduates in late August. “Covid did exacerbate the need to automate. I believe we'll see explosive growth in this arena.” The eKentucky Advanced Manufacturing Institute – or eKAMI - is a workforce development training center…
At Cabka North America in St. Louis, Mo., workers at 11 injection molding machines spent their days unloading plastic pallets and manually trimming and stacking them for transport to the warehouse using forklifts or pallet jacks. The repetitive and physical work at the 400,000-square-foot facility made it difficult to retain workers, while forklifts on the floor lead to safety concerns. A new fully automated production line including mobile robots (Mobile Industrial Robots, or MiR) has improved safety and productivity. To automate the process and improve safety, Cabka designed a fully automated production line. The new line includes a mobile robot…
Mobile Industrial Robots (Booth 9435) launched the MiR250, a collaborative autonomous mobile robot (AMR) that is faster, safer and more agile for operations where space is at a premium. Capable of traveling at 7.2 kph, the robot is lower and narrower than other AMRs, enabling it to efficiently navigate limited spaces such as door openings as small as 80 cm, small elevators and under tables. Artificial intelligence leverages onboard cameras to identify people and nearby objects, providing additional operational context and insight. Consider the example of a picker or lineside employee. If the robot’s target destination is blocked from the…
ForwardX Robotics (Booth 1207) recently launched in the Americas what it claims is the world’s only computer vision-based AMR fleet, which has already been installed in logistics, manufacturing and retail facilities abroad. The company is offering a free two-year warranty and a “Pay When You Achieve ROI” campaign for the turnkey solution, and guarantees 99.5% uptime in 24/7 operations. It uses deep learning and reinforcement learning algorithms to deliver enhanced localization, more accurate obstacle avoidance and more efficient path-planning in dynamic environments by integrating inputs from RGB, RGBD, LiDAR, radar, and ultrasonic sensors. A centralized fleet management system manages robot…
RightHand Robotics (Booth 9826) is exhibiting its RightPick2 autonomous robotic piece-picking platform, which handles the picking and placing of individual items as part of a range of warehouse workflows and processes. RightPick2 combines new skills based on RightPick.AI, the AI-enabled vision and motion control software with deep learning. The system can pick and place thousands of SKUs, fulfilling orders at high speeds while playing an integral role in consistent order management. “RightPick2 sets a new standard for speed and dependability,” said Leif Jentoft, co-founder of RightHand Robotics. As a materials handling automation company, RightHand Robotics is streamlining order fulfillment with…
Despite being an industry focused on the movement of goods, until very recently, the materials handling industry had flourished using a fairly basic assortment of checkpoints and transactions. Aside from time elapsed, so much of what happened in the movement of goods went unmeasured. In its efforts to respond to unprecedented consumer demands, the industry has labored under operational holdovers from the days when folks allowed six to eight weeks for delivery. Despite incredible progress, compressing the transactions hasn’t increased visibility of the spaces in between. A new generation of location-based data analysis tools are working to collect information about…
A family-run chain of supermarkets, Mercadona is a market leader in Spain’s grocery retail sector. Founded in 1977, the group has more than 1,600 stores across Spain and employs some 76,000 staff to serve 5 million Spanish households. For its new DC in Guadix, Granada, the company invested in robotic automation for the handling of its fresh produce, which has minimized handling times to maximize product freshness and shelf life. The new DC was designed to handle 6,000 stock keeping units (SKUs) and shift more than 3.5 million cubic feet of merchandise per month. The facility features zones for various…
At a press conference Monday, Waypoint Robotics (Booth S3588) announced the addition of MAV3K, an autonomous mobile robot with a 3,000-pound carrying capacity, to its line of omni-directional, industrial strength robots for the manufacturing workforce. MAV3K comes equipped with Waypoint’s Dispatcher software allowing it to be set up and autonomously operating in less than 15 minutes. MAV3K’s batteries keep it moving throughout the workday, and Waypoint’s EnZone wireless charging system enables MAV3K to charge itself. MAV3K features dual safety-rated LiDAR sensors, a three-stage safety system and autonomous navigation. “We are thrilled to offer the workforce a better tool to move…
Knapp (Booth S1231) showcased its new OSR Shuttle Evo+, a flexible, scalable and reliable autonomous mobile robotics solution. Knapp’s redPILOT software technology is a finalist for MHI’s Top IT Innovation Award. As a control tower for warehousing and distribution, redPILOT plans and optimizes warehouse and distribution resources for senior supply chain managers and their operations teams. By managing Big Data, predictive modeling and analytics, IoT and artificial intelligence, the software helped EDEKA, a $57 billion grocer, to optimize 5,500 employees and seven major distribution centers. Knapp announced it has undertaken the biggest project in the company’s history: a 2.2 million-square-foot…
Based in Sterling Heights, Mich., Fitzpatrick Manufacturing is a CNC machine shop and custom manufacturer. Founded in 1952, the company supplies parts to more than a dozen sectors, including aerospace, automotive, medical equipment, and oil and gas. To increase operational efficiency and counterbalance a tight labor market, the company deployed a collaborative robot (cobot) that can work overnight to prepare materials for the morning shift. According to Kevin LaComb, co-president at Fitzpatrick Manufacturing, the new collaborative robot had to prove its versatility. “We were very deliberate about finding the right job for it,” LaComb says. “This is the first time…
At an Assa Abloy plant in Bucharest, Romania, the skills gap is widening every year. In response, the factory’s management invested in robotics to automate simple tasks and move workers to value-added positions. This generated in-house robotics expertise that set an example for the whole Assa Abloy group. About 500 people work at the plant, assembling locks that are sent to other Assa Abloy factories worldwide to be transformed into finished products. Of the many processes performed, most are done manually by employees who have been working there for decades. According to Adrian Iosif, mechanical design engineer at Assa Abloy…
Beyerdynamic is a German audio equipment leader that embarked one year ago on a plan to increase factory floor productivity by 50% on a four-year plan. This had to be done in the same production space, without compromising the brand’s quality standards. Using a series of collaborative robots, the company has already significantly boosted volume and quality. One of the first processes the company targeted is a glue-spraying application. Speakers used in the headphones need to be refined acoustically by applying a medium, which was previously done manually. The process is naturally not safe or stable, and the new robots…
