Industrial Robots for Material Handling Applications

“Materials handling” can refer to any number of different activities on the factory floor, encompassing the movement, control and storage of products and materials through manufacturing, warehousing, and distribution. At the end of the day, there is no hard-and-fast definition. The variety of materials handling tasks at play in a manufacturing facility will vary depending on several factors – from the organisation’s preferences to the different steps in the production of their products.

These tasks might include packaging, palletising, fastening, or tending among many others. Whatever the case, there are many distinct drawbacks to using human workers for these tasks. Fortunately for manufacturers, material handling applications are the tasks where industrial robots excel at delivering real value in the production process. 

Palletising and “pick and place” work is some of the most commonly automated today, and when we look at the advantages, it’s easy to see why.

Palletising 

Loading and unloading bags and boxes to and from pallets is backbreaking and slow work for human employees. Materials handling robots can make short work of these tiresome tasks, lifting hundreds of kilograms at a time with ease (provided the strength of the individual robotic arm is well-suited to the job at hand).

Yaskawa robots are even able to go a step further than ordinary material handling applications with automated robotic pallet repair. This saves manufacturers enormous sums of money over time by enabling the safe re-use of pallets which may otherwise go to waste. Human operators simply select which pallet parts need repair on a touchscreen and the machine dismantles and repairs them automatically.

Pick, Place and Pack

In production processes that require many steps to completion, “pick and place” activities can be a frustrating bottleneck to optimal speed and efficiency in the manufacturing facility. These involve the picking up of objects and placing them onto another surface in a specific orientation for other machines to take on the next steps in the process. 

“Pick and Pack” is another variation on a similar task, involving the filling and packing of containers and crates. 

Simple enough jobs – so why automate them?

A slow and tedious process when human workers are concerned, the very repetitiveness of these tasks is what makes them perfect for an automation upgrade. With automated material handling, speed and efficiency of picking and packing are drastically improved – and what’s more, these robots can work 24/7 if needed.

Robotic materials handling is being taken advantage of by businesses of all sizes and in many different sectors. Highly repeatable tasks such as machine tending, loading and unloading, packing and part transferal are – and always will be – integral to just about any business that manufactures any kind of product. 

Equipped with improved payload capacity, advanced vision systems and more sensitive handling systems, robots are able to execute these tasks with far better accuracy and amazing speed. More advanced programming possibilities also mean that a single robot can perform multiple tasks depending on what is required of it, making the best use of available floor space and offering tangible return on investment faster.

Dipping your toes into Robotic Materials Handling

Determining payload and speed requirements, deciding on the right end-of-arm gripper for the job at hand, and assessing your facility and available floor space are necessary – it’s not merely a case of unboxing your new robot and setting it loose on the factory floor. Robotic Automation experts like Yaskawa will happily guide you through the integration of robots into your workforce, enabling easy programming and daily use for operators. 

Get in touch with us to find out more about the possibilities of industrial robotics in your operations.