ABB: Automate 2019 Interview

Nicolas De-Keijser met us at the booth for ABB at Automate 2019 in Chicago for his first interview with IndustrialSage! Nicolas is specifically part of the company’s robotic business unit.

Since ProMat and Automate were rubbing shoulders all week, we briefly departed from ProMat and wandered into ‘strange territory.’ Actually, we just wanted to see if we could meet some peers of Monique Elliott (whom we interviewed on the show back in February). That was where we ran into Nicolas!

The display of the day was ABB’s miniature factory environment, which showed each of their robots working together. The first in the chain was their new line of single-arm collaborative robots. Many businesses at the event had a new term for this branch of devices: “co-bots.”

In cooperation with its human user, ABB’s first co-bot could load a USB drive into the machine. The drive would thus be delivered to the Inverted SCARA robot. The SCARA can actually be ceiling-mounted to use facility square footage more efficiently.

“We call it the zero-footprint robot, because the foot is up in the air and it can reach everywhere it wants.”

ABB’s high-speed pick-and-place robot then moved the USB drive in the display down the line until it reached the IRB 1100. This, ABB’s fastest and most compact robot in their repertoire, has shown to provide 35% increased productivity and up to 10% space savings. In fact, it may be one of the fastest and most lightweight six-axis robots in the entire world!

Users can employ this robot triad displayed by ABB at Automate 2019 to create an assembly factory with maximum flexibility. Together, the trio can perform some impressive and intricate tasks.

However, it’s not just the robots that are new. ABB has new controllers for them as well. Now their monitors come in many shapes and sizes. Some controllers even employ touch-screen displays, which users find far more intuitive.

Controllers are available in half-the size that they were before, but with all the new connectivity technology that users love. Robots and controllers alike sync with the cloud and connect online. Any companies striving for Industry 4.0 (also known as the Internet of Things) can purchase these robots with confidence, knowing they’ll support that dream.

“It’s something we’re pretty excited about. We’re going to release these at the end of this quarter, so around June all of these products are going to come into the market. It will help us build the factory of the future.”

 

 

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