“It’s never about the technology. It’s always about the people.”
This is not a story about robots.
This is a story about how global manufacturing — powered by the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI), and driven by consumers’ rapidly rising expectations — is changing, and how a 119-year-old German automation company is leading this change from proudly weird Austin, Texas.
In full view of LBR iiwa (a lightweight robot (pictured) for human-robot collaboration) and KR AGILUS sixx (a six-axis robot that operates at high-working speeds), I sat down with Andy Chang, KUKA’s Director of Product Marketing, Americas.
In his role, Chang focuses on introducing cloud, web, and mobile technologies that augment traditional robotics operating technologies. I asked Andy to share his vision for the factory of the future. I also asked him what we need to do to get there faster. His answer? We need smart, connected, mobile robots — matrix production — with the global people and manufacturing community to support them.
SMART
Today’s manufacturing robots just aren’t that smart. Today’s robots perform a single function. They’re fixed in one place. And they’re unable to tell if there’s an obstacle in their paths, let alone modify their actions based on differences in the materials they’re operating on, such as those caused by changes in raw products or environmental conditions. There was a long period of time when this didn’t matter. Product life-cycles — for cars, planes, appliances, and other items — ran 7-10 years. Optimum production efficiency meant massive “warehouses” filled with specialized workstations.
Shift back to today. Can you imagine having a seven-year-old iPhone? That’s the problem, neither can today’s consumers, and this change has not just affected how Apple, Samsung, and their many smartphone peers manufacture their products. Retooling, whether for a new product or for even a minor change in an existing product, requires a significant investment in infrastructure. Even worse, it’s slow, which means shutting down production lines until retooling is complete.
By their very nature, OEMs are cautious, risk-averse. It’s worth noting that while the even more conservative and risk-averse financial services industry has fully embraced cloud technologies as they have matured and become more secure, manufacturers are still wary, making hyper-customisation impossible. Where smartphone manufacturers have had to evolve to enable the economical mass production of one, they are the exception, not the rule.
Andy sees robots being able to perform 10-20 different processes, from welding, gluing, and drilling to cutting, screwing, and more. He sees robots being able to change their “personalities” on demand, giving factories the ability to reorient and retool their shop floors on demand. Leaving behind their fixed functions, robots will be able to automatically and continually self-adjust, self-orient, and self-train based on the needs they themselves identify. The retirement of a generation of “robot whisperers” who understand their charges so well that they can anticipate costly failures and maintenance, makes it all the more urgent to have robots who can accurately predict their own needs for parts, supplies, and adjustments.
CONNECTED
Today’s robots struggle with talking to both each other and to humans. Thanks to the exponential growth of smart home devices, the average consumer has more connected products in their smart home than the average worker does in a factory. Workers dream of being able to message and “chat” with their robots as easily as they do the appliances and electronics in their homes.
Robots in my smartphone’s Contacts? H2M communications will enable simple, secure control of robots on the factory floor with the communications channels workers already know and use.
Manufacturing robots are now being loaded with sensors and the computational power to manage, analyse, and store the big data they generate on every one of their tools, joints, and actuators. Components are now talking to each other within and across robots, between robots and other machines, and between their operators and owners. Robots’ self-awareness comes from computational and artificial intelligence. The end goal according to Andy? Automation which will enable your grandmother to train a robot more easily than she can train her grandkids to tie their shoes.
MOBILE
Mobility requires power. Whether it takes the form of innovative new battery technologies and/or wireless power and charging (i.e., if roads can power electric cars, factory floors that power electric robots won’t be far off) Andy sees manufacturing working together as a community to overcome the challenges and obstacles presented by current battery technologies.
To get us to the factory of the future from where we are today, these are the steps Andy sees the industry needs to take. The first step is ‘connectedness’ (see: OPC Unified Architecture). It’s the foundation for everything else in a smart factory. Step 2 is the ability to extract insights from big data to learn about the individual manufacturing processes themselves. And step 3 is the optimisation, replacing the robot whisperers to predict failure based on each machine’s actual operating time and work conditions.
Tapping into both Austin’s talent and culture, Andy Chang is leading KUKA to lead the industry.
This is a Sponsored Post* by Unified Inbox.
All information/views/opinions expressed in this article are that of the author. This Website may or may not agree with the same. Images have also been supplied by the author. This Website has been given prior permission by Unified InBox to re-publish this post.
*Sponsored posts are Content produced by a company that is either paying for the post or has a business relationship with this Website or its holding firm New Age Content Services LLP, and the posts are always clearly marked. Content produced by our editorial team is never influenced by advertisers or sponsors in any way. For more information, contact administrator (at) theinternetofallthings.com
About the Author
The #1 Internet of Things (IoT) expert on social media and the fourth most-followed CMO worldwide on Twitter, Ken is the Chief Marketing Officer for Singapore-based intelligent IoT messaging company Unified Inbox Pte. Ltd. (UIB).
A graduate of the Stanford Graduate School of Business’ Marketing Management Program, Ken earned his Master’s degree in International Management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management.
Ken hosted the award-winning Social Solutions podcast for seven years and is a popular author and frequent speaker on digital transformation and leveraging new technologies to emotionally connect companies to their customers. Follow Ken on Twitter at @KenHerron!