Cobot based product line helps manufacturer grow revenue by 230%

3D Infotech had developed deep domain knowledge through custom metrology automation projects, but the approach wasn’t sustainable long-term. After extensively researching the market, 3D Infotech standardized its automated metrology product line on UR cobots. “When we looked at lots of different options for robotics, we almost always had to make some kind of compromise in functionality that we would deliver to the user, because we weren’t able to get the full extent of the technical platform that we needed,” says Khanna. UR provided the ideal mix of functionality, ease of programming and use, safety, and all-around support that 3D Infotech needed.

3D Infotech’s Universal Metrology Automation (UMA) line is based on its Streamline quality assurance software and a platform of flexible, intuitive, and collaborative UR cobots. With the system, users can simply pick a part and a preset program that has the scan coverage of the entire part, and then press play and walk away. By standardizing on the family of UR cobots, all of which share the same underlying technology platform and APIs, 3D Infotech can easily deploy systems for a wide range of applications.

The stringent and variable requirements of inspection meant that 3D Infotech needed an automation platform that provided both robustness and flexibility. The robots need to maneuver a wide range of sophisticated sensor technologies safely and accurately. Michael Crowley, 3D Infotech director of automation, says, “The collaborative nature of the UR robots allows us to put these expensive pieces of technology on the end of the arm, and have that confidence that the robot isn’t going to run into something and damage the end-of-arm tool. That peace of mind that we get—I don’t even have words for it. It’s incredible.”

The ease of development with the UR cobots was key to 3D Infotech’s fast success. “The programming documentation, as far as integrating with the APIs, was very comprehensive,” Crowley says. “But what I really like about the UR platform is that it’s so intuitive we could pick up the teach pendant and understand what we were doing with it without having to read the documentation.” The initial integration of core functionality of the UR robot into the 3D Infotech product took only about two weeks.