Robots to boost Lankan manufacturing sector productivity

In a bid to help boost the productivity of the labour scarce local manufacturing sector, Danish robotics market leader Universal Robots A/S (UR) officially launched its collaborative robots, or ‘co-bots’ product line in Sri Lanka yesterday.

“An MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) study found that a human and a co-bot working together can increase productivity by 85 percent,” Universal Robots India and Sri Lanka General Manager Pradeep David said.
He noted that the cost of a UR co-bot, which is between 1.2 million-2 million Indian rupees depending on the model, can be recovered within 2 years in India, while in Europe, the recovery period is 195 days, compared to an operational life of 35,000 hours, if run non-stop at full capacity.
David added that co-bots allow humans to focus on what humans are good at, such as innovation, empathy, quality control, and inspections, while the co-bots act as a 3rd arm, doing repetitive, mundane tasks such as stacking, assembling etc., which might bore humans and reduce productivity.
 

“Many ask, don’t robots take away jobs from people? No. Poor standards and management takes away jobs,” David said, and showed that South Korea, Japan and Germany, which have the world’s highest robot density, also have some of the lowest levels of unemployment.
The Institute of Engineers Sri Lanka President Elect Jayavilal Meegoda endorsed Universal Robots.
With the scarcity of labour in manufacturing due to Sri Lankans moving towards service oriented jobs such as three-wheel and taxi driving, the industrialists have lobbied the government to explore the possibility of importing large volumes of labour from India and other cheap labour markets.

Universal Robots India and Sri Lanka Marketing, Communications and Public Relations Manager Richa Misri noted that the level of skill needed to programme and operate UR co-bots to different tasks is the same as that needed for operating a smart phone.

David said that a co-bot can be operated in the vicinity of a human due to the ISO/TS 15066 standard, which is not available for other industrial robots, which need to be in a caged off from humans to protect their lives.
“So, production doesn’t come to a halt when a human comes near the co-bot, and when the co-bot hits something, it stops. It’s safe. The co-bot can also be disassembled from one line if that line is not operating that day, and set up in another line in 15 minutes,” David added.
The Universal Robots product line consists of UR3, UR 5 and UR10, which can handle tasks up to 3kg, 5kg and 10kg respectively, and David said that clients have used the UR co-bots for unconventional purposes successfully, including for cooking, bartending, neurosurgery and physiotherapy.
He said that all major Sri Lankan apparel manufacturers have bought UR co-bots and are testing them before making further commitments, while other manufacturers such as the tyre manufacturer, Lodestar, as well as educational institutes, such as the University of Moratuwa have shown interest.

David said that the Universal Robot’s co-bots have no maintenance cost, and a part of the reason it is officially launching in Sri Lanka is to find local distribution partners who can stock spare parts for easy swapping with deployed co-bots.
“We already have some Sri Lankan customers, in apparel, rubber gloves, biscuits, the usual types. I can’t divulge their names because we’ve not yet been allowed to do so,” David added.
Universal Robots is expecting a 50.8 percent compounded annual growth rate until 2020, and has currently deployed over 10,000 co-bots.
Some of its major clients include BMW, Volkswagen, Siemens, Calvin Klein, Johnson and Johnson, Hindustan Unilever and Bajaj. (CW)