UR10 cobots address labor shortages and reduce routine work

BAUMRUK & BAUMRUK

In short

BAUMRUK & BAUMRUK s.r.o. is a Czech company in engineering manufacture. Needing to better utilize their current employee staffing and increase production, the addition of UR10s to the company solved their challenge and relieved the workers from repetitive tasks. The product portfolio of the company includes serial production of metal parts and components for construction machinery. The company further specializes in the manufacturing and delivery of spare parts for railway carriages produced by the ŠKODA brand.

The business transformation

“We have been automating our processes continuously and systematically – from administration, through warehousing to manufacturing,” says Martin Baumruk, owner of BAUMRUK & BAUMRUK. “In production, we use 7 large welding machines from Cloos and Yaskawa, and for machine loading processes we also use 3 robots from Fanuc and Yaskawa. All these robots are industrial, non-collaborative ones and we use them in the protected workplace.”

The company needed to automate processes of loading smaller parts into milling centers, however, with a tight layout of the workplace it was not possible to install fences or other safety features. Moreover, the company wanted to use the milling center both with a robot and with a human operator, so it was necessary to keep safe access for people.

BAUMRUK & BAUMRUK

Industry Metal and Machining

Country Europe

Number of Employees 100-500

Cobots used UR10

Video — UR10 robot, BAUMRUK & BAUMRUK, Czech Republic

The solution

The company was interested in seeing if collaborative robotics could help bridge the gap. After a half hour introduction at a trade show and a 3 hour demonstration at a vendor’s office, the company decided to purchase cobots from Universal Robots.

Two UR10s are used for alternate loading of small parts into CNC machines, which can also be loaded manually by human operators. The cobots use a pneumatic two-finger gripper and two additional end-effectors. As mostly metal parts are processed, a magnetic end-effector is used.

With the UR robot, the company staff was able to develop a functional, mid-sized application within two days. BAUMRUK & BAUMRUK workers spent 2 hours training in the UR Academy training program and after that they developed their first application within 8 hours and fine-tuned it within the next 8 hours. A repetitive execution of the same completed application took just a few minutes for a physical rebuild and setup.

“We have engineered and built the entire workplace including the pneumatic system and interconnection to the machine system ourselves, with no external support and without having to create a special project team. That’s why the project took three months – after everything was prepared, we deployed the robot in just a couple of days,” says Baumruk.

Our major goal is maximum automation of production processes. Of course, not everything can be reasonably and effectively automated, but wherever we see a potential to reduce routine tasks, we try to do so. Although it is too early to bring quantified evaluations, we have already achieved the main benefit, for which we have deployed the cobots: reduction of repetitive and routine work.

Martin Baumruk , Owner, BAUMRUK & BAUMRUK

The benefits

The company workers do not have to be present at the CNC machines and execute routine tasks of loading and removing parts. Now, they just fill a container with parts for several hours and randomly check the task status. In the meantime, the worker can check the setup of other machines, solve possible incidents etc. The cobot is not enclosed within a fence and does not need any additional safety guarding. The UR is lightweight and mobile, ready for new tasks as they develop

As not all parts can be easily loaded by a cobot, BAUMRUK & BAUMRUK also enjoys the high flexibility of UR cobots to alternate the machine tending processes with a human worker. The investment into the cobot can be returned within 9 months, considering its full load, two-shift operation and reduced labor costs. Return on investment, however, is not the main priority for the company, the main benefits from using UR cobots are reduction of routine tasks and elimination of problems arising from actual shortage of qualified workforce in the Czech job market.