Last year proved itself to be a veritable roller coaster of subversion and development, leading to an increase in the adoption rate of robotics in some areas and a decrease in other areas, but it still paints a picture of the continued growth of robotics in the future.
Facts have proved that 2020 is a unique turbulent and challenging year, plagued not only by the unprecedented destruction of the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated economic impact, but also by the uncertainty that often accompanies election years, as companies are Hold their breath on major decisions until the policy environment they must deal with in the next four years becomes clearer. Therefore, a recent survey on robot adoption by Automation World showed that due to the need to maintain social distancing, re-support the supply chain, and increase throughput, some vertical industries have seen huge growth in robotics, while others believe that Investment stagnated because the demand for their products fell and their decision-making process was paralyzed by political and economic uncertainties.
Nevertheless, given the turbulent dynamics of the previous year, the general consensus among robot suppliers-most of which is confirmed in our survey data-is that their field is expected to continue to grow strongly, and the adoption of robots in the near future It should continue to accelerate in the future.
Like collaborative robots (cobots), mobile robots may also accelerate growth, as many robots move beyond fixed applications to more flexible robotic systems. The adoption rate to date among the surveyed respondents, 44.9% of the respondents stated that their assembly and manufacturing facilities currently use robots as an integral part of their operations. More specifically, among those who own robots, 34.9% use collaborative robots (cobots), while the remaining 65.1% use only industrial robots.
There are some caveats. The robot vendors interviewed for this article agree that the survey results are consistent with what they see as a whole. However, they did notice that adoption in some industries is clearly more advanced than others.
For example, especially in the automobile manufacturing industry, the penetration rate of robotics is very high, and automation has been achieved long before many other vertical industries. Mark Joppru, vice president of consumer and service robotics at ABB, said that this is not only because the automotive industry has the ability to make high capital expenditure investments, but also because of the rigid and standardized nature of automotive manufacturing, which can be achieved through fixed robot technology.
Similarly, for the same reason, packaging has also seen an increase in automation, although many packaging machines that move products along the line do not conform to robotics in the eyes of some people. Nevertheless, in recent years, robotic arms have been heavily used, sometimes on mobile carts, at the beginning and end of the packaging line, where they perform material handling tasks such as loading, unloading, and palletizing. It is in these terminal applications that the further development of robotics in the packaging field is expected to achieve greater development.
At the same time, small processing shops and contract manufacturers—whose high-mix, low-volume (HMLV) production environments often require greater flexibility—still have a long way to go in adopting robotics. According to Joe Campbell, senior manager of Universal Robots application development, this is the main source of the next wave of adoption. In fact, Campbell believes that the overall adoption figure so far may be even lower than the 44.9% found in our survey, because he believes that many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) served by his company are easily overlooked and are basically still invisible trade associations, Industry surveys and other data.
“A large part of the market is actually not fully served by the entire automation community. We will continue to find more and more [SMEs] every week, if any, their degree of automation is very low. They do not have robots, so this It’s a big problem for the future growth area,” Campbell said. “A lot of surveys done by the association and other publishers may not reach these people. They don’t participate in trade shows. I don’t know how many automated publications they are looking at, but these small companies have growth potential.”
Automobile manufacturing is one of the vertical industries, and during the COVID-19 pandemic and its related lockdown, demand has fallen sharply, causing the adoption of robotics to slow rather than accelerate. The COVID-19 Effect Although many people believe that COVID-19 will accelerate the adoption of robotics, one of the biggest surprises in our survey was that 75.6% of the respondents stated that the pandemic did not push them to purchase any new robots in their facilities. In addition, 80% of people who brought robots in response to the pandemic bought five or less.
Of course, as some vendors have pointed out, these findings do not mean that COVID-19 has had a completely negative impact on the adoption of robotics. On the contrary, this may mean that the extent to which the pandemic accelerates robotics varies greatly between different industries and applications. In some cases, manufacturers did purchase new robots in 2020, which may be in response to other factors indirectly related to COVID-19, such as the need to increase the surge in demand or the throughput of vertical industries that quickly meet labor demand. The interruption of the chain forces the backflow of the field.
For example, Scott Marsic, senior project manager at Epson Robotics, pointed out that his company has seen a surge in demand for personal protective equipment (PPE) amidst a surge in demand for personal protective equipment (PPE). Marsic emphasized that the main interest in robots in these industries has been focused on increasing production, rather than using robots to separate production to achieve social distancing. At the same time, although the automotive industry has achieved good automation and is a typical source of new robot purchases, the blockade has reduced transportation demand exponentially, so demand has fallen. As a result, these companies shelved large amounts of capital expenditures.
“In the past 10 months, my car has driven about 2,000 miles. I didn’t change oil or new tires,” Marsic said. “My demand has fallen. If you look at the automotive manufacturing industry, they will follow suit. If there is no demand for auto parts, they will not invest in more automation. On the other hand, if you look at the rising demand In areas such as medical equipment, pharmaceuticals, and even consumer packaging, they will see demand [increase], and this is the sales area of robots.”
Melonee Wise, CEO of Fetch Robotics, said that due to similar reasons, there has been an increase in robot adoption in logistics and warehousing spaces. As more and more home consumers order a variety of goods online, the demand has surged.
On the topic of using robots for social distancing, the overall response of respondents was rather weak, with only 16.2% of respondents saying that this was a factor that prompted their decision to purchase a new robot. More prominent reasons for purchasing robots include cutting labor costs by 62.2%, increasing production capacity by 54.1%, and solving the problem of less than 37.8% of available workers.
Related to this is that among those who bought robots in response to COVID-19, 45% said they bought collaborative robots, while the remaining 55% chose industrial robots. Since collaborative robots are often considered the best robotic solution for social distancing because they are able to work flexibly with humans when trying to separate lines or work units, they may have lower than expected adoption rates among those responding to the pandemic It is further emphasized that concerns related to labor costs and availability, quality and throughput are greater.
Small processing workshops and contract manufacturers in high-mix, low-volume spaces may represent the next growth frontier in robotics, especially collaborative robots (cobots) that are popular because of their flexibility. Forecasting future adoption Looking ahead, the expectations of robot suppliers are bullish. Many believe that as the election ends and the supply of COVID-19 vaccines increases, industries where market turmoil has slowed robot adoption will resume a large amount of demand. At the same time, those industries that have seen growth are expected to move forward at a faster rate.
As a potential warning of high supplier expectations, our survey results are slightly moderate, with slightly less than a quarter of respondents saying they plan to add robots next year. Among these respondents, 56.5% plan to buy collaborative robots, and 43.5% plan to buy typical industrial robots.
However, some suppliers stated that the significantly lower expectations in the survey results may be misleading. For example, Wise believes that because the installation of a traditional fixed robot system sometimes takes as long as 9-15 months, many respondents who said they do not plan to add more robots next year may already have projects in progress. In addition, Joppru pointed out that although only 23% of respondents plan to increase robots, some people may increase a lot, which means that the overall growth of the industry may increase significantly.
In terms of factors driving the purchase of specific robots, 52.8% said ease of use, 52.6% said the robotic arm end tool option, and only 38.5% were interested in specific collaboration features. This result seems to imply that flexibility, rather than the collaborative safety function itself, is driving the increasing preference of end users for collaborative robots.
This is definitely reflected in the HMLV field. On the one hand, manufacturers have to deal with the challenges of high labor costs and labor shortages. On the other hand, the product life cycle is short, requiring rapid conversion and increased production variability. Doug Burnside, Yaskawa-Motoman’s vice president of sales and marketing for North America, pointed out that using manual labor to deal with the paradox of rapid conversion is actually easier because humans are inherently adaptable. Only when automation is introduced will this process become more challenging. However, increasing flexibility by integrating vision, artificial intelligence, and more diverse and modular tool options can help overcome these challenges.
In other places, robots may prove useful in certain areas, but have not yet begun to adopt them. According to Joppru, ABB has already had preliminary discussions with the oil and gas industry on integrating new robots into their field operations, although the realization of these projects may take several years.
“In the oil and gas sector, there are still a lot of manual processes happening. Three people grab a pipe, then chain around it, grab a new pipe, and connect it so they can drill another 20 feet. ,” Joppru said. “Can we use some robotic arms to automate, so as to eliminate boring, dirty and dangerous work? This is an example. We have discussed with customers that this is a new penetration area for robots, and we have not been able to pursue it yet. ”
With this in mind, even if processing workshops, contract manufacturers, and small and medium-sized enterprises become full of robots like the largest automakers, there is still a lot of room for expansion in the future.
Post time: Aug-27-2021
