When manufacturers can't staff tasks on their production lines it severely affects the bottom line resulting in drastic increases in overtime, cycle time and downtime. With the U.S. unemployment rate remaining at 3.5 percent, the lowest in 50 years, companies are increasingly looking at automation to solve production challenges due to 10,000 baby boomers retiring every day and few millennials interested in joining the manufacturing industry.  At ATX West in Anaheim, CA, Feb 11-13, the pioneer and market leader of collaborative robots, Universal Robots (UR), will show attendees how cobots now power ergonomically unfavorable, repetitive and even technically complex tasks that manufacturers can’t staff.

Fast and Cost-Efficient Palletizing with miniPAL
UR’s ATX booth 4815 is the launch pad for OEM partner Columbia/Okura’s new miniPAL, a mobile palletizer product powered by the UR10e cobot arm. The flexible miniPAL with a footprint of 11’x13’ can palletize at two pallet locations for optimized operation. The latest design showcased at ATX includes two safety mats and two area scanners that detect when people enter the work envelope, allowing the system to meet even higher speeds when not in collaborative mode. The system plugs into 110V AC wall power, can be set up in less than a day, and delivers an average payback between 8-10 months, depending on application and industry.