The digital networking of industrial production has long since become a megatrend. Collaborating robots make companies more productive and help them to cope with the challenges of volatile market conditions. But cutting-edge manufacturing technologies are only one aspect of institutional value creation: on the road to Industry 4.0, it is also important to keep an eye on the material flow.

In many companies, very little attention is usually paid to this area. Those responsible fail to recognize the optimization potential that is actually hidden in intralogistics. Countless man-hours are lost when employees take on time-consuming journeys and put a lot of effort into transporting goods. This is not only laborious for the individual. At an operational level, the manual handling of such processes unnecessarily slows down workflows and ties up capacity that would be urgently needed elsewhere. In an increasingly networked production environment, the efficiency of the entire production process ultimately suffers as a result.

Mobile transport robots provide a remedy. The Danish company Mobile Industrial Robots (MiR) produces autonomously navigating transport robots that streamline the internal material flow. They are already in use in a wide range of industries. With a payload of up to 500 kg, transport robots relieve factory employees of the task of lifting and carrying heavy goods. They also move faster than a human can walk. In this way, they relieve employees of physically demanding tasks and give them time to deal with more challenging activities. They can be used around the clock, helping companies to fully utilize their production capacities.

Compared to floor-bound transport systems, robots from Mobile Industrial Robots fit into dynamic production layouts. There is no need to adapt the infrastructure, as they navigate autonomously thanks to special sensor technology and safety algorithms. This allows them to find their way independently and safely in places where people go about their daily work.

Robot and add-on module - the combination makes the difference

All these advantages mean that robot colleagues are increasingly becoming part of the standard repertoire of factory halls. As a result, the focus is shifting from mobile robots and their technology to their role as a holistic application: the transport robot itself is an open platform that only becomes a functional automation solution when equipped with attachments. In this form, it can meet the specific needs of the end user and offer economic benefits. To this end, more and more manufacturers are developing individual modules to expand the usability of mobile robots.

In production, robots are often fitted with shelf attachments. These have proven to be particularly practical for transporting semi-finished products between the individual production steps or bringing finished products to the warehouse. Employees call the robot at the touch of a button, load its shelf with the relevant materials and then send it on its way again. Ergonomically designed shelf loading surfaces make loading and unloading even easier. If the robot is equipped with a shelf lifter, it can even "set up" shelves with rollers on its own.

The American medical technology company Argon Medical Devices, for example, uses a MiR200, named after its load capacity in kilograms, with a shelf attachment in production, where it carries out errands between production and the warehouse. Before each transport, employees load it with up to eight transport boxes, each weighing around 20 kg. The internal material flow runs more smoothly as a result. Queues at the production lines and raw materials lying around are a thing of the past. The mobile robot saves Argon Medical the resources of a full-time employee, which are much more urgently needed in materials planning.

Conveyor belt modules are also among the most frequently used add-on solutions for mobile robots. They usually bridge the material flow between fixed conveyor belts or production cells. They are also used for full automation, i.e. the realization of almost automatic transport processes in which human intervention is limited to monitoring and controlling activities such as starting up, feeding raw materials or removing products.