Solve the problem that small and medium-sized enterprises are unwilling to automate

The demand for robotic solutions is growing steadily worldwide, reflecting the global industry’s urgent need to operate smarter, more efficient, and more sustainably in a competitive market. However, to date, the advantages of robotics have mainly been seen in heavy industry such as automotive manufacturing and in applications such as assembly, inspection, packaging, palletizing and warehouse logistics.

In contrast, the adoption of robotics in many other fields has been slower. Penetration levels are still relatively low among SMBS, but these businesses could have gained as much or even more from robotics than larger enterprises. The main reason is the perception that robots are expensive, inflexible and difficult to program, factors that could deter smaller companies from investing in the technology; Another major concern concerns safety, as with other heavy machinery, large industrial robots typically operate in environments with barriers, fences and other protective measures to protect people from harm. So SMBS may be concerned that even smaller robotic solutions pose similar risks, as well as the potential cost of controlling security risks.

This is where we come up with collaborative robots

The good news is that these old prejudices are being reversed by a new wave of solutions, ABB provides solutions that can bring robots and people closer together than ever before. Cobots are specifically designed to work side by side with human colleagues. Various market forecasts show that as more companies invest in cobots, the potential of cobots to help improve worker productivity is further highlighted. Research firm MarketsandMarkets, for example, predicts that collaborative robots will grow at an annual rate of 41.5% between 2022 and 2028, driven by a shortage of skilled labor in need and rising production costs.

Cobots are able to tirelessly perform repetitive, high-precision tasks, freeing up workers to perform other, more valuable tasks. This enables smes to optimise the quality of their products and the stability of their output, while addressing Labour shortages by deploying their existing workforce more efficiently, thereby enhancing their competitiveness in the global market.

The growing demand for robotic solutions is mainly due to the easy-to-use nature of collaborative robots. According to our recent survey of 1,650 industrial companies worldwide, nearly a third of respondents cited ease of use and easy programming as key criteria for investing in robotic automation. ABB’s YuMi®, GoFa™, and SWIFTI™ collaborative robots are designed with ease of use in mind, allowing workers to program and operate without specialized robotics or software knowledge. ABB’s intuitive Wizard Easy programming software is simple to set up and enables cobots to learn their desired positions and actions in minutes by dragging and dropping graphics blocks. By reducing programming difficulty and requiring no specialized programming knowledge, this simple programming software enables cobots to be programmed quickly and is friendly to novice users.

These collaborative robots can also be used with ABB’s robotic RobotStudio offline programming software. This programming software can test and perfect everything from a single robot to a complete robot workstation in a virtual environment, before actual installation based on the testing. RobotStudio also offers options including AR applications and cloud-based versions that allow collaboration between users at different sites, providing a powerful tool for collaborative and industrial robots to fully leverage their advantages.

In addition to the benefits of ease of use, collaborative robots also add more functions. Both GoFa and SWIFTI have a range of different loads and work ranges to choose from, enabling them to handle and perform new tasks with higher loads, opening up new possibilities for collaborative automation for smes and first-time users. Through ABB’s ecosystem program, users can also easily achieve a wider range of capabilities with reliable and qualified peripherals and software solutions.