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Customer day collaborative robotics and industry 4.0 – technical presentations and demonstrations

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  • Customer day collaborative robotics and industry 4.0 – technical presentations and demonstrations

05.10.2015 – The second Customer Day of the year took place at the Boll Automation GmbH site in Kleinwallstadt on October 01, 2015. The central topics were the closely linked trends Industry 4.0 and collaborative robotics.

For the event, for which the factory hall was seasonally decorated to match Oktoberfest, we were able to welcome more than 60 specialists and managers from numerous companies in various industries. In addition, there were 5 speakers who covered the following topics along the thread of collaborative robotics:

To set the mood and prepare the topic, Dr. Richard Söhnchen, Managing Partner of Boll Automation, spoke on the topic of “Why are collaborative robots changing your business?”

Afterwards, Dr. Dietmar Steins, Principal at Strategy&, a partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC), shed light on the long-term strategic aspects of the topic of collaborative robotics and Industry 4.0. His presentation title was “Modern automation – answer to the challenges of demographic change?” The interest and follow-up questions from the participants testified to the great importance attached to this topic in the industry.

Mr. Michael Otto, Division Manager Advanced Robotics of our partner KUKA Roboter GmbH, gave an inspiring lecture on “Possible applications of human-robot cooperation and sensitive automation solutions”.

Mr. Uwe Schmidt from HLS Ingenieurbüro GmbH provided basic information on the new manufacturing concepts in Industry 4.0 in his presentation “Production planning for human-robot cooperations”.

Dr. Franz Eder, Business Development Manager of Descam 3D Technologies, introduced the potential of collaborative technologies in quality assurance to the interested visitors. “Collaborative robotics and quality management” was the title of his presentation.

The application-oriented presentations, which were supported by the great interest of the participants, were followed by what the customer days of Boll Automation are known for and particularly in demand: The live demonstration. This time, of course, on collaborative robot automation in practical application:

The collaborative geometric measurement of safety-critical parts was solved by the 3D scanner Roboscanner from Descam 3D Technologies GmbH. A collaborative robotic arm performs the scan along an automatically generated path. Advantages of the system are its flexibility and thus its economic applicability even for the smallest batch sizes.

Another exhibit was the collaborative determination of fiber direction on fiber composites. The direction of the fibers in such components is decisive for mechanical stability. Particularly in safety-critical applications, optimization and safeguarding of the production process is of crucial importance here. Similar to the automatic path generation of the robotic scanner, the measurements are performed with a collaborative robotic arm. In this way, the advantages of automation by the robot are also made available for a high number of variants, as is often the case with fiber composite components.

The participants were particularly impressed by the “Flexible machining of workpieces” demonstration: The KUKA LBR iiwa, which can be taught both quickly and intuitively using the solution developed by Boll Automation, made it possible to automate the deburring of a truck plule in under two minutes before the eyes of the trade audience.

The “Adaptive assembly of flexible components” demonstration contributed by KUKA was also impressive. In particular, the audience marveled at the sophisticated solutions used by the KUKA LBR iiwa to orient itself in a work area that is “unstructured” for it because it is simultaneously used by human colleagues. By the way, KUKA presents an illustrative video of the corresponding application here.

Following the practical demonstrations, there was still an opportunity for technical discussions with the experts. In keeping with the Oktoberfest, Bavarian finger food and beer were served.

We would like to thank the visitors for their keen interest and the numerous participants. As the event was fully booked, as usual, we ask you to register and make a reservation in good time for our next Customer Day, which is expected to take place in the first quarter of 2016. If you would like an individual workshop for your company on one of our numerous topics in automation, robotics and quality assurance, please contact us.