<p">If you look at the sickness rates by occupational group, it quickly becomes clear that employees in the chemical and plastics industry are particularly affected by causes such as musculoskeletal disorders and respiratory complaints. Solutions are therefore needed that get to the root of the problem and fundamentally realign industrial work.

Health burdens inhibit productivity

Such solutions are offered by companies such as the Danish robot manufacturer Universal Robots (UR), which specializes in collaborative robots. Cobots are lightweight robots that are allowed to work directly alongside humans under certain conditions. Safety fences or other protective devices, as required for traditional industrial robots, are not necessary.

Cobots can now be found in many application scenarios: They test around the clock, load machines with workpieces, palletize, polish, mill, apply labels and work wherever humans need help. In no way do they replace employees, they merely relieve them. This collaboration has a welcome side effect: the productivity of human-robot collaboration is even higher than that of human-human or robot-robot teamwork.

Cobots not only make work processes more ergonomic, they also make them safer. A cobot is equipped with various safety functions and is allowed to work directly next to humans once a risk assessment has been successfully completed. This is based on a force and power limitation, the validation of all possible collision scenarios and the definition of a collaboration space. The latter determines where humans and robots can move and interact at the same time in a shared workspace.

Cobot takes over the manual cutting of line tensioners

The British company Clamcleats produces line tensioners that are used in the water sports sector. During production, the line tensioners are cut manually. This repetitive activity can cause repetitive strain injury syndrome (RSI) in the long term, which mainly manifests itself in pain in the hand, arm, shoulder and neck area. In order to minimize the health risk, those responsible looked for a way to relieve the strain on employees - in the form of an automated application.

For Clamcleats, the solution was a robot from Universal Robots: the cobot was programmed to move uncut parts to the cutting tool and give a cutting signal. However, the robot can also be used to load and unload the CNC machine. Cutting used to be a separate activity. Today it is done automatically, with simultaneous quality control and subsequent packaging. As this eliminated the risk of RSI, Clamcleats turned to large series, which are produced in batches of up to 10,000 pieces.

Productivity increase as an advantage for the location

Cobots can not only improve ergonomically unfavorable conditions in production: they also enable companies in the plastics industry to plan strategically, reserve important resources for peak times and reorganize processes that are critical to competition. Profatec, based in Malans, Switzerland, decided to automate its production processes. The company manufactures specially molded plastic solutions for customers from a wide range of sectors - from the automotive to the pharmaceutical industry. When Profatec wanted to include injection molding in its portfolio, it was faced with the difficult decision of relocating production to Asia for cost reasons.

Against this backdrop, Profatec was looking for a robotic solution that would also enable injection moulding production in Switzerland at competitive prices. On the one hand, it had to be possible to adapt quickly to the injection of new plastic parts. On the other hand, it also had to allow the economical production of small batches. Profatec ultimately opted for two UR cobots, which do not require lengthy programming or maintenance. Ultimately, the Swiss manufacturer was able to complete its orders faster and more profitably with the help of the cobots. Thanks to the automation solutions and the resulting cost reduction, Profatec was also able to increase its profitability.