Lights out manufacturing full#

Lights out manufacturing full#

Jonathan Schwartz, Chief Product Officer of Voodoo Manufacturing, says, “We can monitor the robot through our own software and access the status of any given printer to see whether it’s printing or idle, which means we can deploy this in our factory and run it 24/7 without any human oversight.” Schwartz describes the first morning he came in to find more than 30 completed print runs handled overnight as “magical.” Read the full Voodoo Manufacturing case study. The key to tripling output is the ability for the cobot to tend printers overnight. With a second cobot, the startup will go from 30%-40% printer utilization to 90%. Voodoo installed the cobot on a mobile base so it can tend up to one hundred 3D printers. And using UR cobots allows the company to automate at about one-fifth the cost of traditional robotics that require safety cages and expensive integration. This repetitive task requires speed, accuracy, and consistency-making it ideal for automation. “Harvesting” is the process of loading and unloading 3D printer plates, which takes up about 10% of all labor hours. Voodoo Manufacturing in Brooklyn, New York is a rapidly growing 3D printing farm that is scaling up to handle large production runs to compete with traditional plastic injection molding manufacturing.

Round-the-clock production helps startup scale-up As well as being controlled by Winfactory 4.0, the entire process is also traced and recorded, to allow the causes of any defects or nonconformities to be identified and remedies taken. Read the full Creating Revolutions case study. Automatization of the material handling process has opened the way to round-the-clock lights out manufacturing. The software also provides insight into precise production data around the clock. But by renting robots by the hour, and only paying for the hours they actually work, companies of all sizes can afford to automate more of their processes.” Hirebotics’ cloud-connected solution includes high-definition cameras and a web-based interface that lets the manufacturer and Hirebotics monitor the robot on any smartphone. Hirebotics Co-founder Matt Bush says, “Most companies are years away from lights-out manufacturing because it’s so capital intensive. But the cobot also continues to perform long after workers go home for the night, preparing parts for assembly the next day. The cobot solves the manufacturer’s need for accuracy and throughput while working alongside human workers during the day. The solution was an affordable, easy-to-program UR cobot integrated by Hirebotics in an innovative rental model in which Creating Revolutions pays only for the hours the cobot operates. As a startup, budgets are tight, but the company was struggling to meet demand and maintain quality in its product’s complex assembly process. Creating Revolutions is a Florida-based startup that makes a customer-service paging system for the hospitality industry.