What happens the day the robot arrives
The robot arrives on a Tuesday, in a crate, on a truck that cannot get to your dock. Here is the delivery week as it actually happens, from the rigger who was not booked to the first jam at 3:40 on Thursday, and what to do the week before so that none of it surprises you.
The short answer
The robot is the most reliable thing that happens in delivery week. Everything around it is where the schedule goes: the crate that does not fit the door, the compressed air drop that is on the wrong column, the breaker that is the wrong size, the forklift that is busy, the operator who is on vacation. None of it is dramatic. All of it is predictable, and a one page checklist the week before turns a bad week into a dull one, which is the goal.
Tuesday: the crate
A six axis arm with its controller and a pedestal arrives on a pallet that weighs more than the pallet jack is rated for, and the truck is a 53 footer that cannot back to a dock built for box trucks. The rigger, if booked, has a forklift with the right forks and a plan. If not booked, the crate sits on the truck while someone makes calls. The fix is two phone calls the week before: ask the integrator for the crated weight and dimensions, and book the rigger they recommend.
Wednesday: air, power and the floor
Grippers run on compressed air, so the cell needs a clean, dry, regulated drop at the cell, not thirty feet away on a hose. Controllers need power at a specific voltage and phase with a correctly sized disconnect. The floor needs to be flat enough for the pedestal or the cart, with anchors where the integrator marked them, and clear of the pallets that migrated there since the site visit. Every one of these is on the integrator's pre-installation list. Every one of them is skipped somewhere every week.
Thursday: the first jam
The cell runs. It runs well for three hours. At 3:40 a part arrives upside down, or a vented carton loses vacuum, or the vise closes on a chip, and the cell stops and waits, as it should. The question is not whether this happens. It is who walks over, what they do, and whether the recovery is written down. The integrator will show the operator. The operator should write it on a card and tape it to the controller, because the next jam will be at 2 AM in month three when the integrator is in another state.
Friday: the sign-off
Commissioning ends with an acceptance test against the rate and quality you agreed in the contract, which is why that number should be your peak rate and not your average. Then the risk assessment is finalized, the operators are trained, the spare parts kit is on the shelf, and someone signs. If any of those is missing on Friday, you have not bought a cell yet. You have bought a very precise paperweight that will become a cell when the paperwork catches up.
The week before: the checklist
Crated weight and dimensions, and a booked rigger. Truck access confirmed. Air drop at the cell, regulated and dry. Power with the right disconnect. Floor flat, anchored, clear. Network drop if the cell reports anywhere. Operators scheduled to be present and not on vacation. Parts, real ones, in the real containers they arrive in, staged for the test. Acceptance criteria written down. A named owner for the first jam.
Why this is good news
Because none of it is about the robot. The arm will do on Thursday exactly what it did in the integrator's shop and will do in month thirty, which is why the matrix on this site treats arms at a given payload as largely interchangeable and spends its attention on the gripper, the fixture and the integrator. The surprises in automation are almost all logistical and almost all preventable with a list. Even the Millennium Falcon mostly broke down over maintenance.
If you want to know what the list looks like for your application, describe the station to Joe, the concierge on this site, and ask him what the integrator will want ready. He has heard the Tuesday story before.
Related on this site
- The last ten percent
- Who will run the cell
- The integrator is the one who signs
- Lights-out manufacturing: what actually happens at 2 AM
- The ten application guides
The week the robot arrives is a logistics project with a robot in it. Book the rigger, run the air and power, clear the floor and decide who owns the first jam before the truck is dispatched.
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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