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Cobots are flexible and programming them for a task does not require a manufacturer’s technician. This creates a “utility player” on the production floor. As needs change, so can end effectors and programming, leaving a cobot available to perform different tasks on different days if the production schedule warrants. Pick and place, assembly, machine tending, packaging and palletizing and surface finishing are just a few of the applications best suited for cobots.

The longer it takes to set up automation, the more expensive the initial investment gets. Initial investment can by high if it takes a long time to set up automation. Cost creep comes in the forms of additional staff training, production stops and externally hired techs to help with the installation. Cobots come with out-of-the-box functionality and can be preprogrammed at the factory or by your automation integrator to allow for 1-hour setups. ROI comes faster when the complexity is simplified.

Imagine doing the same repetitive task over and over – focus and safety is an issue in these types of jobs. Ergonomic challenges can create injuries and days lost for employees. Cobots perform processes where a human worker might lose focus, become tired (and unsafe), or have diminished performance. Cobots can change tasks without training, and change jobs without pushback. And if workers embrace cobot not as a threat to jobs, but as a productive co-worker, the production line is optimized and the workers enjoy additional job satisfaction.

It has been noted in a scholarly study of collaborative robots, done by Dr. Shirine El Zaatari of Coventry University, that there are four distinct collaborative scenarios for humans and cobots:

• Independent: A human operator and a cobot work on separate workpieces, independently, and on their individual manufacturing processes. The collaborative element constitutes the shared workspace without cages or fences.
• Simultaneous: A human operator and a cobot operate on separate manufacturing processes on the same workpiece at the same time. Concurrently operating on the same workpiece minimizes transit time, improves productivity and space utilization, but as such, there is no time or task dependency between the humans and the cobot.
• Sequential: A human operator and a cobot perform sequential manufacturing processes on the same workpiece. Here, there are time dependencies between the processes of the operator and the cobot; often the cobot is assigned to handle the more tedious processes, which may also improve the operator’s working condition.
• Supportive: A human operator and a cobot work on the same process on the same workpiece interactively. Here, there may be full dependencies between the human and the cobot, as one cannot perform the task without the other. At the present stage most examples of cobots deployed in industrial settings are related to the ‘independent’ or the ‘simultaneous’ collaboration scenarios. Most advanced research projects, aiming to break new ground, can be categorized as striving for ‘sequential’ or ‘supportive’ collaboration scenarios.