TERM PAPER ON

ROBOTS AND AUTOMATION IN

MANUFACTURING

Presented To
Prof. NEETHA EAPPEN
On
13th March 2015

In partial fulfilment of the

requirement of the course

OPERATION
MANAGEMENT

ROBOTS AND AUTOMATION IN MANUFACTURING Submitted By:

THOMSON JOSEPH
P141214
PGDM B
INTRODUCTION
Manufacturing is termed as production of goods for use or sales using raw materials, labour,
machines, chemical and biological and tools etc…In industrial production, it is the process of
transforming of raw materials to finished goods. Finished goods again can be sold to others
for the manufacturing of much complex products. Manufacturing sector is closely related to
with engineering and industrial design. As the manufacturing sector progressed more
technology came in to existence. Automation and Robots started to enter in the
manufacturing arena.

Industrial robot are the automatically controlled, reprogrammable, and

multipurpose manipulators which have axes to move or to do certain activities with
precession. The typical use of robots include Welding, painting, assembly, pick and place etc.
Apart from this they are also used in product inspection. Articulated robots, SCARA robots
are main robots used in the Industry. The robots also include motion control, power source,
drive and compliance. The program design of motions and sequences for an industrial robot
is typically taught by linking the robot controller to a computer. There is an international
federation of Robotics (IFR) which watches the sale of industrial robots, it estimates that it
will grow to 70 billion dollar business by end of 2025.

Automation or automatic controls the use of various

control systems for operating equipment like machinery, processes in the factory like
conveyers, networks, communications sections etc. Automation helps in reducing labour
dependency, more than that it increases overall productivity. It improves energy efficiency as
well as saves material consumption. Automation with the help of proper control mechanism
can help in improving quality, accuracy and precision. Automation can be achieved by
various technics like mechanical, haudraulic, pneumatic, electrical and also using
combination of all this. Automation has many advantages and disadvantages, but most of the
cases advantages overweight’s disadvantages. Glancing through disadvantages the main are,

 The high initial cost.

 Resistance from all level of employers.
 More vulnerable to make simple logic error.

Apart from all this manufacturing industry has improvised mainly because of this automation
and Robotics.
JOURNAL REVIEW

1, Advances in Robotics & Automation

This journal deals with the future advance which we can see in the
automation and robotics. It is already evident that without all this manufacturing sector
cannot survive. The general inclination in industry is to cut cost per produced part while at
the same stretch increase the capacity to produce on demand. The market is expected to
become more volatile than ever before because of technological advancement in products and
production system. Robotics and automation has been implanted in high volume and low
variety production. When it comes frequent product changes and low volumes, robotics and
automations couldn’t be fully utilized. But current developments in robotics has explored
new prospects in developing and executing methods, design principles and software tools to
backing the development and operation of highly flexible industrial robot systems.
Reconfiguration and the concept of flexibility are the main research topic in
the area of industrial robotics. The fresh advances during recent years have improved
opportunities, which bring the general concept of industrial robots more rapidly to the
capabilities and paradigm of service robots, which is used for simple automated works. The
future developments will be in such a manner that the professional worker can collaborate
with the operator to do work, it also means side by side working or sharing tasks. The 1990’s
developed HMI (Holonic manufacturing paradigm) is system which is capable of self-
configuration as well as alteration of the system. As the flexible production has low volume –
fast change over requires the HMI as well as SME.

The major pillars towards developing a flexible automation system.

HMI and collaboration types

Safety containing collaboration

Automatic programming and deployment

Planning and scheduling.

The ability to which automation system adapt to new production scenario is important for the
degree of reconfiguration and flexibility. In a collaborative mode and for close to one-off
production, programs need to be made spontaneous, but realistically for meagre operations,
which the operator can put organised into sequences. Again, the provision of an operator in
flexible production is clear, and to do that task, the system must be supported by suitable
safety procedures. HMI which contribute to an efficient communication, the aim of this work
is to enlarge the general use and application where industrial robots can be functional and
offer methods and tools which makes it possible to partially robotize work operations and
production which has been manual today. The technology for this is accessible and a next
step in the use of industrial robots is imaginable to be seen within the next few years.

2, INDUSTRIAL ROBOT APPLICATIONS IN

MANUFACTURING PROCESSES IN ASIA AND AUSTRALIA

This journal deals with the degree of penetration of industrial robots in the Asia/Australia
manufacturing sector. It enable us to see the role of industrial robot in a manufacturing
process and to see which manufacturing processes have the maximum industrial robot
application and related systems. The journal also helps us to see how much effort the region
of industry has put in for automation and implementation of industrial robots. Automation
and upgrading of a manufacturing process in any industrial sector is impossible without
industrial robot application.

There is continuous increase in industrial robot application especially in

flexible automation in the area of food, pharma and electro- electronic industry. It is
understandable that Asia/Australia takes the first place in industrial robot applications in the
world. In 2010, in Asia along with counterpart Australia were applied 69.833 of industrial
robot units, and the total number of industrial robot applications amounts to 498.933 units.

Since Japan, china and India are among the topmost manufacturing hubs of the world so
naturally if they have to compete with the others they have to depend on automation and
robotics. China is one among the countries which have tripled its total industrial robots from
2009-2010.

The robots handling jobs volume to 41 % and welding to 30 % at the yearly side by side,
also in automobile industry 21 %, then in electro industry 37 % and in chemical industry 8 %
of additional functional industrial robots. South Korea takes the first place in industrial robot
applications in 2010 with 23.508 units, then comes Japan with 21.903 units, and the Republic
of China takes the third place with 14.978 robot units. After them come the following
countries: Taiwan with 3290 units, Thailand with 2450 units, Singapore with 777 units, India
with 776 units, Malaysia with 677 units, Indonesia with 357 units. It is evident from all this
that china is performing far better in automation and robotics better than all. The high
potential electronic industry is the main reason for it.

CONCLUSION
Regarding both the journal it is obvious that automation and robotics is the future of
manufacturing sector. Already the most high volume production companies have
implemented it, since without it they have realized that they can’t survive. With the
advancement of the information technology there are lasting changes in industrial robotics,
leading to new functional solutions and higher possibilities of the industrial robots
applications. The robots and automations have been becoming more flexible so as to aid the
low volume –high variety production. In future the technology will make the operator to have
collaborative mode with the robots and share their tasks. In future the demand for unskilled
human Capital drops at a slower rate and the demand for skilled human capital will increase.

China and japan are topping in world with implementation of

the automation and robotics. It can be said that China is performing automation and
modernization of its manufacturing process, and as the highest process of application in
automobile and electro/electronic industry is in Asia, China is already developing those
industries in order to be competitive on the market.