What changed when they automated
What changed when a Quebec fixture maker unloaded a brake press in six feet of floor space
At Etalex in Quebec one employee unloaded a brake press by hand eight hours a day in a busy aisle with no room for guarding. A UR10 with suction cups now picks each part and stacks it on a cart across 10 production cycles. Manual work on the task fell to about an hour a day, with an estimated 12 month ROI per the vendor.
The short answer
A commercial interiors and racking manufacturer with 25 fenced robots on site put one unfenced collaborative arm in front of a brake press, in six feet of floor space, to unload and stack parts across 10 different production cycles. Manual labor on the task fell from eight hours a day to about one hour, and the vendor publishes an estimated ROI of about 12 months. The account below is the maker's own case story, so read every number as the vendor published it, not as an audited result.
What the job looked like before
One employee stood at the press for eight hours a day, reaching into the press area to unload parts, in an aisle where people walk past constantly. There was no room for safety fencing, and the operations manager needed one solution to cover 10 production cycles.
What they put in
A Universal Robots UR10 with a pneumatic suction cup end effector, running unguarded after a risk assessment approved by the Quebec occupational health and safety commission, with a zone sensor added voluntarily so the robot slows to 20 percent speed when an unknown object enters the workspace. The press works holes in the parts and the robot picks each piece and stacks it in a pattern on a cart. It unloads and stacks only; it does not sequence bends.
What changed, in their numbers
Manual labor on the task reduced from eight hours a day to about one hour a day of inspection and coil changing, roughly seven hours a day freed. Estimated ROI of about 12 months, presented as an estimate. The cell serves 10 production cycles within 6 feet of space. A 40 percent increase in sales is published and attributed by the customer to automation across the plant generally, not to this cell. No layoffs resulted. All published by the vendor. Cycle time and cell cost were not published.
What this does not tell you
It does not publish the cell cost or labor rate behind the 12 month estimate. The 40 percent sales figure belongs to the whole plant. And the cell is an unloader, not a bending cell; a shop that needs the robot to hold the part through a bend sequence is looking at a different, heavier project.
What to verify in your own plant
Whether your task is unloading and stacking or full bend sequencing. Whether a risk assessment in your jurisdiction would allow an unguarded arm at your press, with the speeds and sensors that implies. Your part variety, since one gripper covered 10 cycles here. And the floor space, which was the whole constraint.
Sources: https://www.universal-robots.com/case-stories/etalex/ and https://www.therobotreport.com/ur10-cobot-manufacturer-sales-40/
Describe your press, your parts and your aisle to Joe, the concierge on this site, and it will tell you whether an unloader or a bending cell is the honest fit, and what the integrator will need to assess.
Related on this site
- Press brake tending
- Press brake tending for small parts
- Collaborative does not mean fenceless
- Robots for metal fabrication
- The casebook of published deployments
This cell replaced eight hours of reaching into a press with one hour of inspection and coil changes, in a space no fenced robot could fit. The risk assessment, not the arm, made it possible.
Put it to the test on your own job
Tell Joe what you are running and he will apply this to your numbers, including telling you when a robot is the wrong answer.
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