Artificial intelligence, together with automation and the adaptive data cloud, has profoundly changed operations in the warehouse and on the factory floor.
The ability to analyze data across the entire value chain is improving productivity, aiding maintenance operations, and creating new service-oriented business opportunities. That was the message Microsoft’s Kathleen Mitford delivered in her opening keynote at the International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS) 2024 in Chicago earlier this month.
From combing through CAD libraries to applying natural language models to maintenance records for delivering step-by-step instructions on how to fix a robot or even a jet engine, manufacturers have undergone an AI transformation. Everyone — from the CIO to the engineer to the operators — can access programs like Microsoft’s Copilot to act as a generative AI assistant.
The democratization of AI is an inevitable part of the factory floor going forward. “Basically, if [manufacturers] have not started on their AI journey, they’re late,” said Mitford, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of global industry marketing, in an interview with Automated Warehouse.
And if organizations are late with AI, they will miss out on the next evolution of AI, which is the democratization of automation.
New products promise to democratize tech
During IMTS, there were examples of new products and services that unite AI and automation via programming, remote diagnostics, workcell workflows, and even self-service marketplaces to design and buy a machine online.
Here are just a few examples on display at IMTS that showcase these emerging areas of innovation:
Osaro: The Osaro Robotic Bagging System is an e-commerce robotic setup that can accurately scan and identify disparate items in a tote, handle new SKUs, and quickly adapt to changing inventory. This allows the robot to pick and place multiple items into the auto-bagging machine and then to the conveyor to go out for delivery.
What’s different here is the company’s AutoModel. It allows AI to learn on the fly versus having to be trained, which is time-consuming, according to Brent Barcey, Osaro’s senior vice president of corporate development.
Osaro’s rapid AI system allows for dynamic changes in the inbound and outbound flow of goods and the integration of new peripherals, enabling the order-fulfillment line to adapt and evolve in real-time, ensuring continuous efficiency and productivity.
Olis Robotics: The company’s video-based remote diagnostic system watches a robot 24/7 on the packaging line or warehouse. Power over Ethernet cameras are set up around a cell, and when the visual system detects an issue, it saves the video files to allow an engineer to see what happened and even remotely take action.
Working with Universal Robots (UR), FANUC, and Kawasaki robots, the diagnostic system can connect to multiple robots through the robot controller. It also connects to the PLC that provides stats on what’s been going on for the past minute or past 24 hours.
“This is a pretty comprehensive diagnostic suite for automation,” said Olis CEO Fredrik Rydén, noting that the data allows for predictive maintenance as well. “When you have facilities that have a lot of volume of products going out the door, you want to keep them running. This is a tool to ensure you can do that.”
In addition, by partnering with collaborative robot providers like UR, the goal is to make the robot experts more efficient, especially in the face of a labor shortage.
“What UR has been spearheading is the ability for anyone to adopt automation by making it easy to program the robots. Now it is easy to keep them running as well,” Rydén said.
Tulip Interfaces: This no-code system offers an almost effortless way to build applications, which could be workflows, traceability, dashboards, or machine monitoring, for example. The common data model includes templates for different applications that are available for download and includes application program interfaces (APIs) to connect other applications.
As part of the system, the operator is provided instructions, as well as continuous feedback to show errors that may have occurred during a repeatable process. In addition, the Tulip starter kit provides pre-built applications that can be implemented in multiple ways. This allows small and large manufacturers alike to adapt the system to their processes.
applications. Credit: Stephanie Neil
“The goal is to democratize this so you don’t need to be an engineer to do it,” said Natalia Gutierrez, product marketing manager at Tulip.
Vention: When it comes to designing a machine, Vention is incorporating AI into the process to make suggestions on the next component – which is added automatically to expedite the design process.
On the automation side, Vention released a machine motion AI controller with
NVIDIA Jetson. The low-power system is designed for accelerating machine learning applications and enables robots to learn in the cloud.
“We’ll have a robotics model in the cloud that will learn from the operation that is running to give you a better program for your robot for a more efficient operation, said Carl Hajal, Vention’s senior software and robotics segment manager.
He noted that his company differentiated its AI offering by applying it both on the controller and in the cloud. When programming a robot, Vention has also added a co-pilot that can write a program for the engineer and push it into an existing script to update it.
Hajal claimed that this should accelerate programming by about 50% for engineers.
Welcome to the automation marketplace
Vention is known for its self-serve platform, which allows OEMs to design automated equipment, robot cells, and tooling online, while providing real-time bill of materials and pricing information before the equipment is shipped out for assembly on site.
Now, with the proliferation of tools and cloud-based services that make automation accessible and easy to use, self-serve marketplaces are popping up from different technology providers.
igus: The motion plastics company makes flexible cables, chains, linear bearings, slides, actuators, motors, and more. The differentiator for igus products is its self-lubricating material, a proprietary blend, said Felix Brockmeyer, igus CEO.
Over the years, customers have asked igus to assemble its parts into entire systems. Now, the company has an internal startup, called RBTX by igus, which is an online marketplace that connects users with suppliers of compatible, cost-effective robotic components using simple tools.
“It started with small and midsized manufacturers and OEMs in mind, but now everybody is our customer base,” Brockmeyer told Automated Warehouse. “There is a need in the market to offer simple automation instead of what normally is overkill.”
To that end, pricing for specialized robot applications such as pick and place, material handling, machine loading and unloading can be offered at lower price than a traditional feature-rich system.
“There wasn’t an offering in the market to address people that just want to do simple automation tasks,” said Brockmeyer.
The igus robot control includes the company’s own open-source software, which can be downloaded for free to start writing programs before buying a robot. There are also application-specific overviews including videos showing how it works.
“It’s automation for anybody,” Brockmeyer said.
Universal Robots: The UR Marketplace was also a talking point at IMTS. It is a one-stop shop to choose and purchase cobots, components, and services. The platform offers a range of equipment from the UR ecosystem and a quoting and ordering management process and 24/7 call support.
For more news from IMTS, visit Automated Warehouse’s sibling site Control Engineering.
