IMTS 2024 Conference: Cobots Conquer Machine Tending: Extraordinary Efficiency and Productivity Revolution

Wednesday September 11 3:15 PM CST
IMTS49  Room W193-A

Learn about the presentation
Efficiency and productivity — these aren’t mere buzzwords; they’re the pulse of modern manufacturing. Cobots build nimble operators for the shop floor, working tirelessly to feed raw material into their machines, generating consistent and repeatable production for their owners. With this form of production, the show reaps tremendous gains and accomplishes the extraordinary.

Cobots, like many robots work well in the traditional task of handling high-volume production, but often find themselves in their most valuable state of existence, when handling operations in which flexibility is needed or even required...this is what they tackle head-on:

• Complex interfacing: Gone are the days of lengthy retrofit integration processes, where headaches due to complexity can hinder your ROI. Cobots are intuitive, learning from demonstrations and seamlessly integrating into existing machines.
• Product changeover: Adapting to diverse tasks is slow and costly as traditional robots struggle with flexibility. Cobots adapt like chameleons, switching between tasks and machines quickly, maximizing uptime, and conquering diverse tasks.
• Payload: Worried about weight with cobots? Thanks to their versatile range of payload, up to 30kg capacity, they can lift hefty workpieces.
• Manufacturing: Material flow, chip management, and tool wear create challenges for around-the-clock, unsupervised production. Historically, keeping the lights on has been the answer, with managing personnel on standby. Learn how to stomp these challenges and utilize Cobots for increased shop capacity during off shifts.

Meet your presenter
Justin Griffin has been with Universal Robots for over six years and is currently the machine tending segment manager for the United States and Canada. Prior to joining the company, he worked for a robotics integrator and custom machine builder. This experience would prove to influence his early years in regional sales at Universal Robots, where he developed and worked with a diverse network of solutions providers throughout his Mid-Atlantic region. These networks would achieve outstanding results, deploying north of 1,000 robots during his tenure in the territory. In his new job role, Justin focuses on enabling end users and solution providers with new and advanced solutions for robotic automation of their machine tools. Some examples include automatic work holding, connectivity packages/interfaces to machine controllers, or intelligent software that autonomously manages tool wear throughout their machining processes.