Advanced Manufacturing Team, assemble: Prioritizing technology integration in metal fabrication

Having a person or a team responsible for seeking out advanced manufacturing technology for a metal fabricating company might be necessary given the rapid pace of change in the industry. eyefoto/E+

The rate of robot purchases in North American industry over the past three years has been really astounding.

Back in 2020, annual orders for “robotic units,” as the Association for Advancing Automation (A3) calls it, from nonautomotive-related sectors surpassed automotive robot orders for the first time. North American companies ordered 31,044 robots that year. A3 valued the orders at $1.572 billion.

In 2021, 39,708 robots were sold in North America, which broke a record from 2017. A3 valued the units sold at $2 billion. Again, nonautomotive sectors, representing 58% of the total at the time, helped the robotics industry to break records. The metals sector alone was up 91% from 2020 orders.

In 2022, North American companies ordered 44,196 robots, valued at $2.38 billion. That’s 11% more robots than were ordered the year before, which was also a record year. Automotive companies account for more than 50% of those sales, but the trend of adopting automation across all sectors continues, with no real signs of slowing down.

The inability to find parties interested in filling job vacancies obviously is a main motivator for companies, both in the metal fabricating sector and outside of it, to adopt robotics and other forms of automation. But that’s only part of the tale.

Robots are much more affordable when compared to several years ago, and they are becoming easier to program. The emergence of collaborative robots (cobots), in particular, really is emblematic of this trend, and as a result, they have caused many manufacturers to take notice when they otherwise might not have looked at automation seriously.

Kapco Metal Stamping, Grafton, Wis., installed its first Universal Robots cobots on the shop floor last summer. Joe Bassindale, Kapco’s director of manufacturing engineering, said the decision to purchase the cobots was because they offered “flexibility” that more traditional robots didn’t.

A cobots literally can be rolled up to a press brake, programmed for the particular task, positioned where it needs to be along with other cell accoutrements, and put to work. If the press brake work ends, it theoretically can be rolled up to another station and programmed to do welding, handle material coming out of a stamping press, or just about anything else that an engineer can think of. On the other hand, that traditional robot inside the cage is pretty much stuck doing what it was originally purchased for. There’s definitely a reason that robots have been linked to high-volume, low-mix manufacturing settings for years. But maybe that’s changing.

Kapco is keenly aware of the changing times. The company has an advanced engineering team, headed by Stuart Swanson, and it is charged with looking for ways that automation can help Kapco become more efficient and make the most of the resources it does have. This includes not only identifying advanced technology that might make sense for the company, but conducting the due diligence to determine just what sort of impact it will make and, once approval comes, integrating it into Kapco’s operations.

Bassindale said having a team dedicated to handling technology implementations like this really works to Kapco’s advantage.

“You’re not pulling someone who’s right on the shop floor dealing with daily fires, and they’re trying to balance that with this type of assignment,” he said. “We have a focused team that leads the way on these projects.”

Some companies might look at such a team as a luxury. But is it a necessary luxury? Technology keeps advancing at an incredible rate—as do customer expectations. The only way to keep up with new opportunities is to have capacity ready to tackle it, and that’s unlikely to happen with a vintage equipment lineup. The days of throwing bodies at a project are over because that’s noncompetitive and there aren’t enough bodies. Companies have to be smarter as they plan to grow.

Like any continuous improvement journey, the first steps will get you on your way to where you need to go. Reading The FABRICATOR, attending FABTECH, and networking with peers at industry events are just some of the ways that you can stay on top of technological trends. The real challenge is trying to figure out where these modern manufacturing marvels fit into your operations.