Industrial Automation and Motion Control Blog | The Knotts Company

This post is brought to you by David Maltais at Robotiq

The manufacturer's wildest dream is probably to have a flawless, constant production that flows smoothly from raw materials to a finished product. The nature of manufacturing often prevents this dream from coming true, but continuous staff improvements, new working methods and technological innovation gets us even closer to the perfect production line everyday.

Bottlenecks are dream breakers. By definition, it's any department, facility, machine, or resource that’s already working at full capacity and which therefore cannot handle any additional demands.

There are two ways to resolve a bottleneck: get more people to do the task, or shorten the time it takes to perform it. You can accomplish the latter by using a faster machine, creating a different assembly process, or placing a robot at the station.

Those three different options are analyzed in Robotiq's Can You Afford Not to Have a Robot eBook ?

Each option has pros and cons. Skilled workers might be hard to find and require yearly salaries, but unlike any machine, they bring new ideas and can do a lot of different operations that require dexterity and problem-solving abilities.

A new machine is a massive investment, requiring a solid ROI, and it often comes with new employees to operate it. On the other hand, repeatability and scaling possibilities are solid arguments in favor of a new machine.

Automation is complex and also requires a massive up-front investment, but it has numerous advantages. More automation in your manufacturing process might mean having a robot work overnight, or having it execute tasks that are dangerous or unpleasant for humans.

Automation also frees up human workers’ time, enabling them to do more interesting tasks that require greater dexterity or problem-solving abilities. As a result, you can accomplish more with the same number of employees.

This eBook will show you how to take the hard data from your situation and analyze it for each of the different possibilities you have in mind. After going through these examples, you’ll be ready to make up your mind on which option is best for you.

If you’re struggling with a shortage of competent employees, late product delivery, or machine downtime, this eBook can help you out.