Notes from Joe
Short pieces on how automation projects actually succeed and fail, from the applications side. No news, no product launches, nothing that expires. These are the arguments we make to customers before they spend money, written down.
Size for peak, not average
The single most common way a palletizing or packing cell disappoints is that somebody sized it against the number on the production report instead of the number the line actually hits at four in the afternoon.
Your first robot should not be your hardest job
Most shops instinctively point automation at their worst problem. That instinct is right about where the pain is and wrong about where to start.
The gripper is the project
Buyers compare robot arms. Integrators worry about grippers. That gap explains most of the surprises in a first automation quote.
Automating the wrong station buys inventory, not throughput
If the station you automate is not your constraint, you have not bought more output. You have bought a faster way to make work in process pile up somewhere else.
Why we will not tell you a cell is safe
We get asked to confirm that a proposed setup is safe, usually by someone who just wants to move forward. We will not do it, and the reason is worth understanding rather than working around.
The last ten percent costs more than the first ninety
Almost any repetitive job automates cheaply up to a point. The exceptions are what you actually pay for, and they are usually invisible when the project is scoped.
Collaborative does not mean fenceless
The most expensive misunderstanding in this industry is that buying a collaborative robot means you have bought your way out of a risk assessment. You have not.
Payback math lies when the labor was never there
The standard automation justification divides equipment cost by labor saved. That arithmetic breaks quietly when the labor you are saving is labor you could never hire in the first place.
What a robot will not do at your station
The person at that station is doing more than the task you would describe if we asked. Naming the rest before you buy is the difference between a happy installation and a disappointed one.
A model number is not a specification
We maintain a verified database of several hundred robots, and building it taught us something worth passing on: manufacturers name their products by incompatible conventions, and the number in the name is often not what you think.
Decide who will run the cell before you buy it
The most common reason a working robot cell underperforms in year two is not the robot. It is that nobody was ever actually given the job of running it.
The integrator is the one who signs
Most robot projects involve three companies, and the one that matters most to you is not the one whose name is on the arm.
How to read an automation quote
The robot is usually the smallest number on the page and the only one anybody looks at. Here is where the rest of the money actually is, and which paragraph decides whether you ever get to call the project finished.
The integrator you want has said no before
There is one question that sorts integrators faster than any credential, and almost nobody asks it.
Have a job in mind?
Joe will apply any of this to your actual numbers, and tell you plainly when a robot is the wrong answer.