thyssenkrupp BILSTEIN embraced the 4th industrial revolution by creating a specialized team (Industry 4.0 team) to focus on researching, developing, and deploying the latest technology in the manufacturing world. The team focuses on increasing safety, improving quality, reducing cost, and increasing production through the use of advanced manufacturing, traceability, big data analytics and many other sources of technology.
One area of high focus for the Industry 4.0 team is implementing collaborative robots (cobots) throughout the Hamilton plant. The purpose of the cobots is to work alongside the operators to eliminate repetitive, non-valued added, or high quality inspection tasks. There are a total of nine implemented robots performing a variety of tasks; machine load/unload, pick and place off/onto conveyor, final inspection, in-process inspection, bead-blasting, cobot-cobot interaction, operator-cobot interaction, and end of arm tooling change. There are five more UR cobot projects planned for 2019 and 11 more by 2021.