Design for X
Assembly Line
Can AI Deliver Fully Automated Factories?
The good news for manufacturers is that, based on our research and on-the-ground experience, we believe a significant shift is underway. The entry barriers for implementation that hindered earlier efforts are going to rapidly fall in the next few years. Robots are becoming more capable, flexible, and cost-effective, with embodied agents bringing the power of generative AI into the factory environment. Manufacturers must prepare for the inevitable disruption — or risk falling behind.
Our client chose to adopt a “redesign for automation” approach for its process, products, and layout. This complete overhaul of factory operations added new process steps to improve automation feasibility while removing human-oriented process inefficiencies. For example, our client no longer had to sacrifice valuable floor space for storing inventory that humans can see and reach. Instead, they built second-story vertical storage areas that robots can easily access and navigate. With the freed-up space, they installed more machines to increase output by more than 30%.
Programming and integration is 50 to 70% of the cost of a robotic application. Generative AI interfaces are expected to significantly drive this cost down by providing natural language interface for even non-technical workers to instruct robots. The transformation would be drastic: Instead of one specialized worker for every eight robots, the factory would only require one non-specialized worker for every 25 robots. Industry applications have already emerged. For example, Sereact has already rolled out a voice or text command interface, PickGPT, to interact with robots using simple instructions such as “I need to pack the order.”
Design for Robotic Assembly
In reality, equating the abilities of robots and human assemblers is risky. What’s easy for a human assembler can be difficult or impossible for a robot, and vice versa. To ensure success with robotic assembly, engineers must adapt their parts, products and processes to the unique requirements of the robot.
Reorienting an assembly adds cycle time without adding value. It also increases the cost of the fixtures. And, instead of a SCARA or Cartesian robot, assemblers may need a more expensive six-axis robot.
Robotic grippers are not as nimble as human hands, and some parts are easier for robots to grip than others. A part with two parallel surfaces can be handled by a two-fingered gripper. A circular part can be handled by its outside edges, or, if it has a hole in the middle, its inside edges. Adding a small lip to a part can help a gripper reliably manipulate the part and increase the efficiency of the system. If the robot will handle more than one type of part, the parts should be designed so they can all be manipulated with the same gripper. A servo-driven gripper could also help in that situation, since engineers can program stroke length and gripping force.