For today’s heavy manufacturers, conveyance automation systems must be extremely robust and capable of transporting high-capacity payloads, yet also deliver the high levels of flexibility, safety and scalability expected from today’s mobile robotic systems. Modern automated guided vehicles can do just that.
Manufacturing facilities continue to increase their levels of automation to reduce costs, improve productivity, and increase operational efficiency. Newer forms of automation technology also provide manufacturers with a high degree of flexibility, a capability lacking in many earlier forms of fixed, or ‘hard’, automation.
These flexible automation solutions are being embraced by manufacturers as a key strategic differentiator and business facilitator. For today’s manufacturers, “flexibility is the new productivity”.
Manufacturing Automation Manufacturing automation can take many forms. The use of reprogrammable, articulated robots, and now including collaborative robots, for applications such as welding, painting, and palletizing is common among manufacturers of all types and sizes, and other use cases like conducting quality checks using robotic vision inspection systems continue to expand. Another manufacturing automation mainstay involves the use of technologies for conveyance, the act of transporting materials, parts and other objects, as well as moving items under construction in assembly lines for sequential manufacturing processes.
Conveyance Automation Types In broad terms, automation solutions for manufacturing conveyance are of two types – Fixed Conveyance Systems and Flexible Conveyance Systems.
Conveyance Automation Prior to the development of automated conveyance solutions, items under manufacture were typically transported manually using carts, trolleys or forklifts, both powered and unpowered. Over time, many of these manual conveyance platforms – inefficient and often dangerous – were automated using a variety of system types including:
The development of towline systems requires substantial construction and engineering of their operational environment. Deep trenching in the floor and extensive concrete / civil work is often required. Reconfiguring traditional chain-based towlines in response to changing business requirements is a very labor-intensive, costly and lengthy undertaking.
AGVs move with precisely calibrated acceleration and deceleration, and employ different sensing technologies to detect people and obstacles, slowing down or stopping depending on how near the object is, and resuming again when the path is clear.
AGVs are a common (and proven) form of robotic conveyance in manufacturing environments for applications such as parts and components delivery. Since AGVs are designed to move continuously along a fixed path, it also makes them extremely well suited as a replacement for traditional conveyor systems for work-in-process movement during manufacturing operations. Further, since each AGV unit can be individually controlled, it is possible to de-couple the assembly line. For example, some manufacturers strategically plan for buffers, queue positions, or in-process kanbans (IPKs), to help smooth station-to-station timing imbalances. AGVs, being de-coupled from the unit ahead of it, are able to progress out of a completed work station to the buffer to keep the line moving if the next station may be temporarily blocked.
Autonomous guided vehicles range in type from lightweight ‘tugger’ AGVs that that pull unpowered carts for transporting loads, to heavy duty, high payload systems (‘unit load’ AGVs) that can transport discrete, multi-ton objects. Unit load AGVs are also increasingly being utilized to move heavy products under manufacture from one fabrication stage to another .
AGVs move with precisely calibrated acceleration and deceleration, and employ different sensing technologies to detect people and obstacles, slowing down or stopping depending on how near the object is, and resuming again when the path is clear. Recently, some AGVs have incorporated technologies such as vison systems and LiDAR allowing them to navigate autonomously in a manner similar to autonomous mobile robots (see below).
AMRs navigate autonomous using a variety of sensors and sensing technologies including LiDAR (2D or 3D) and camera systems (again, 2D or 3D), with many utilizing both, plus some other types of proximity sensors. AMRs utilize their sensors to detect its surroundings and choose the most efficient route to the target. It works completely autonomously, and if forklifts, pallets, people, or other obstacles occur in front of it, the AMR will safely maneuver around them, using the best alternative route.
For manufacturers, increasing ‘safety’ is positively linked to various business value drivers. Examples include improved worker retention, lower operational costs, and increased production efficiency.
Selection Criteria Many factors must be considered when selecting manufacturing conveyance automation solutions, including the following critical elements:
For manufacturers, increasing ‘safety’ is positively linked to various business value drivers. Examples include improved worker retention, lower operational costs, and increased production efficiency.
Conveyance solutions such as automated guided vehicles are not automation islands. In manufacturing sites, fleets of AGVs are monitored and controlled by sophisticated software, and often linked to warehouse management systems (WMS) and Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES). AGV management software can dynamically respond to feedback from production lines to improve operational efficiency by optimizing performance, streamlining workflows, and eliminating chokepoints. Software such as Ignition, Wonderware, Aveva, and PLEX provide directives to an AGV fleet both wirelessly and through commonplace Allen-Bradley or Siemens PLCs.
The use of autonomous guided vehicles in manufacturing environments has been proven to increase the consistency and reliability of operations, which has a positive impact on quality of produced goods. AGVs provide autonomous and dependable point-to-point transportation of goods and material, and by doing so, it dramatically reduces the potential for human error, the primary source of industrial accidents and damage to products, facilities and more. Furthermore, since AGVs are programmatically controlled, and highly integrated with governing software systems, the AGV units can be programmed to only move if specific quality criteria are met, effectively serving as an in-station poka-yoke.
Many manufacturers need to convey and assemble products that weigh 20,000 lbs, 30,000 lbs, and up to 50,000 lbs, but AGVs with capacity in this range are rare.
Automating Heavy Load Conveyance For industries, such as the electric vehicle, aerospace, alternative energy, and defense sectors, manufacturing processes often involve the movement of heavy parts, objects in work, and eventually, finished products. As such, the capacity of conveyance automation systems for these manufacturers must often exceed 10,000 lbs. Many manufacturers need to convey and assemble products that weigh 20,000 lbs, 30,000 lbs, and up to 50,000 lbs, but AGVs with capacity in this range are rare. The unique load requirements for these ‘heavy’ manufacturers, is very different for other classes of manufacturers, and is a key differentiator when evaluating conveyance automation solutions.
AGVs Vs Towlines High payload AGVs and towlines both share the ability to move heavy items sequentially along manufacturing worklines. Automated guide vehicles, however, have distinct advantages over older towline approaches. AGVs, for example, can be deployed without the high cost of building the fixed towline infrastructure, including the entrenching required for embedding the towline itself.
Automated guided vehicles also provide for much greater levels of flexibility compared to towline conveyers. Production lines can be installed rapidly and modified easily to meet the demands of periodically changing assembly lines in accordance with agile methods.
AGVs vs AMRS Automated guided vehicles and autonomous mobile robots provide manufactures with many advantages over towline conveyance solutions. Each deliver high levels of flexibility and safety. AGVs and AMRs deployments can also scaled as need dictates. However, the distinctive capacity requirements for heavy load manufacturing – 10,000 lbs. and greater – places AMRs at a distinct disadvantage as an automated transportation option for this class of production. For safety, a ultraheavy product should typically be assigned to a predefined and fixed travel path without latitude given to a navigation technology to identify and pick alternative routes.
Best of Both Worlds Manufacturers are increasingly turning to automation and robotics technologies to address the many new challenges brought on by rapid business change, sector growth and increased competition. This includes manufacturers in the medical device (think MRIs), commercial truck, spaceflight, recreational vehicles, and other heavy industries.
In the past, these manufacturers turned to towline systems to automate their production lines. Towline systems, robust and capable for moving heavy loads, lack the flexibility inherent in more modern automated conveyance solutions such as AGVs and AMRs.
Autonomous mobile robots, a relatively recent addition to manufacturer’s solution set, are noted for providing high levels of deployment flexibility, application flexibility, and scaling flexibility. While these systems deliver value as transportation platforms in manufacturing facilities and warehouses, their payload and towing capacities fall short for prodcution workflows that demand the movement of heavy loads.
Modern automated guided vehicles combine the capabilities set of autonomous mobile robots – flexibility, safety and scalability – with the load capacity of towline conveyors. As such, they provide manufacturers with the best of both worlds, a cost-effective, flexible, heavy load conveyance solution for production build lines designed for manufacturing as it is done today, and that can meet the manufacturing demands of tomorrow.
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About the Author Dan Kara is Vice President, Robotics at WTWH Media where he chartered with driving the company’s robotics initiatives including the Robot Report and Robotics Business Review online portals and the Robotics Summit Conference and Exposition, Healthcare Robotics Engineering Forum, RoboBusiness Conference & Expo and the International Field Robotics Engineering Forum. Prior to joining WTWH, he was Practice Director, Robotics and Intelligent Systems at ABI Research. Dan was also President of Robotics Trends, an integrated media and research firm serving the personal, service and industrial robotics markets. Dan has also worked as Executive Vice President of Intermedia Group, and Director of Research at Ullo International.
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