Cobot Advantages in the Chemical Industry

The sector, which has shown significant development in recent times, has undergone intense modernization over the years to make processes much faster, precise, superior and efficient in production, and to meet the requirements of the global market. Operations applied in the chemical industry require care and reliability. These two requirements play an important role in the selection of collaborative robots.

Universal Robots Solutions: Precision and Repeatability

Like processes in the pharmaceutical sector, the chemical industry is characterized by demand for safety, precision and high quality. Universal Robots' human-collaborative cobot delivers successful results in the chemical sector as it does in many other sectors. It offers a flexible production advantage not encountered in other types of automation. Universal Robots' cobot, which stands out with its small footprint, absence of periodic maintenance costs and energy savings, provides production flexibility by enabling safe side-by-side operation with operators. It can work integrated with other automation systems. It has precision and repeatability characteristics in production. It successfully performs pick-and-place, quality control, packaging, assembly and processing applications. The advantage of integrating a collaborative solution is the ability to reduce cycle times by increasing deployment speed (opportunity to prevent costly production stops) and overall productivity.

Safe and Hygienic Work Environment from Cobots

Universal Robots' technology includes three different collaborative robot models, which have TÜV SÜD Certification demonstrating that they operate in absolute safety and hygiene within the working environment. Universal Robots' UR5 and UR10 cobots offer broad capabilities to work in any production environment and application according to carrying capacity and reach distance.

Different Carrying Capacities

Universal Robots cobots with different carrying capacities can be selected depending on the application to be automated. While UR5 cobot and UR10 cobot models are common in the chemical sector, the UR3 model can also be preferred. The UR5 cobot has operational capabilities sufficient to interact with both machines in terms of weight and reach. In this case, it moves pigment jars from the micro-dispenser to the mixing machine, applies caps, places color cards on a barcode reader and activates the final toning measurement with a spectrometer.

Example Applications from Cobots

US-based company Glidewell Laboratoires operates in a specialized branch of the chemical industry for medical applications, producing dental crowns. Glidewell operates one UR10 cobot and 4 CNC milling machines. With the integration of the collaborative robot, the dental crown production process became much more fluid, resulting in a marked increase in efficiency and a reduction in production time. Indeed, production time was reduced from 27 hours to 18 hours. With the introduction of the cobot, Aurolab improved the performance of its kitting application. The company, which produces surgical kits for cataract treatment, increased its production by 15 percent, raising it to 2 million parts per year.   Kandan Özgür Gök Country Manager Universal Robots Turkey & MEA