The Link Between Automation and Machine Tools

Robot sales in the US continue to rise year over year with more companies in many different industries adding robots to their operations. Smaller machine shops, however, have been reluctant to automate their machine tools, even though they know it can boost productivity by double digits and help them solve their labor challenges. But fears of automation’s cost and drain on precious time and resources have posed major barriers to entry for these businesses.

What if automating machine tools could be done faster, cheaper and easier? New advances in automation and the adoption of cobots, or collaborative robots, are making that a reality. Cobots are easy to set up and teach; allowing production to quickly resume even on the first day the cobot arrives. Plus, cobots can do dull and repetitive jobs better suited to automation, freeing up people to focus on higher-level tasks. In addition, cobots offer the flexibility to scale up production on the fly, especially in low-volume/high-mix environments that require frequent part changeover.

This session will go over all the key factors to consider when evaluating automated machine tending, what it can do for your operations and the various ways to integrate robots and cobots to machine tools. There will also be a discussion on cobots and how their new features are making them more user-friendly to operate and program than ever before.

Greg Buell, Staff Engineer - General Industry and Automotive Segment, FANUC America Corporation

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