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Benchtop Robots Making Their Mark on the Assembly Line
December 31, 1969 |Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
By Deepa Mathew, Frost & Sullivan analyst
Surface Mount Technology (SMT) manufacturing has experienced a complete revamp in the global manufacturing scene. Regions such as North America, Europe, and even Japan that have traditionally been the hotspots of large volume electronics manufacturing have been sidelined as original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) realize the cost benefits in realigning the manufacturing scene to better suit their business. Shifting base to regions that provide inherent benefits of lower wages, abundant sourcing of raw materials, and so on have provided tremendous relief to manufacturers trying to reduce costs.
With the transfer of high-volume low-mix production, assemblers in Europe and North America are concentrating their efforts on R&D and new product introductions (NPIs). Next-generation electronics continue to originate from these regions. This low-volume high-mix production brings to the forefront SMT equipment that can handle the necessary requirements with greater levels of accuracy and flexibility. SMT equipments on benchtop models mainly cater to those assemblers who are involved in the purpose of research and prototyping.
Artificial Intelligence on the Shop Floor
Benchtop robots have aided the assembly process since the mid-1990s. These small footprint machines have the ability to perform multiple tasks without compromising on required precision and flexibility. These robots provide the advantage of an advanced automated process to even small manufacturers who did not have the resources to invest in automated equipment earlier. Additionally, these machines are simple to program and easy to maneuver and control. They also come with self-diagnostic features to assess errors in procedures. These mini-robots are designed to handle numerous tasks such as solder and glue dispensing, pick and place, screw driving, cutting tracks, testing, as well as many other tasks. Only a few manufacturers around the world produce this small yet multi-functional equipment.
One of the significant advantages of these products is that their functionality is curbed only by the user's imagination. They are built on a robust platform and can be configured to suit numerous end-user applications without investing in additional equipment. They offer numerous cost benefits to manufacturers. Small footprint translates to huge savings on the factory floor space. Manual activities can be performed with much greater precision and repeatability. Maintenance on these machines is negligible and their throughput is much higher as compared to humans, thus stepping up production capacities. Bigger industrial robots are less popular, owing to high cost and longer payback periods. However, the payback period on the smaller machines can sometime be as small as six months. These machines have particularly caught on in countries that have high cost of labor. Japan, U.S., and member countries of the European Union are some of the early adopters of these machines. This trend is expected to continue in future, with intensifying price pressures.
The automobile industry is one of the major end-users of benchtop robots. Applications include screw driving, inspection of sensors, and assembly of sound systems within vehicles as well as many others. Tier 2 and 3 manufacturers use these machines to their advantage spanning various industries such as electronics assembly, medical devices, fiber optics and others. These robots are increasingly being used in medical applications as well. They are used to assemble and put together various medical devices including pacemakers, cardiac mitral valves and contact lenses that require high precision levels. An aging baby boomer population in the United States and in other regions of the world is a huge driving factor for robot sales.
Extending the Scope
These robots are now coupled with cameras to suit inspection purposes. Inspection is yet another field that can be addressed by integrating high performance cameras with desktop robots. Various image-processing tools for image capture and measurement and verification accompany them. It has the capability of identifying locations down to the sub-pixel level. Furthermore, standard inspection systems with one camera can be custom configured to include a maximum of four as per end-user requirements. Manufacturers now also offer both monochrome and color camera options. They can be used in SMT inspection for detecting missing or skewed components. Triggers are put in place to set off alarms in the event of a component mismatch. This prevents wrong components from being mounted on the PCB, not to mention huge cost savings for the assembler by cutting down on rework and repair expenses.
Sales of industrial robots have been increasing since 2003. According to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), worldwide yearly installations were at 68,595 in 2002. This increased to 86,200 in 2004 and is expected to reach 106,300 in 2007. The number of units expected to be in operation forecasts to be 997,700 in 2007, which is a substantial improvement from 770,105 in 2002. Benchtop robots overall are not usually clubbed with the larger robots but, due to their high flexibility and low capital costs involved, their sales outnumber the larger industrial robots by almost two times. The future growth of the desktop robot market looks promising as regular process improvements and reengineering are enabling their sizes to shrink further while making them still affordable for even small start-up companies.