Despite being a niche product that accounted for just 3 percent of global robot spending in 2018,
cobots are the fastest-growing segment of the industrial robot sector. By 2025, cobots are expected to jump from niche status to thoroughly mainstream, accounting for 34 percent of global robot spend.
Flexibility is an important driver of global cobot adoption. Whereas traditional robots can provide expensive, one-off solutions to a particular problem, cobots offer low-cost, flexible solutions to a myriad of problems. In the midst of all the uncertainty around COVID-19, cobots offer manufacturers a proven way to maintain business continuity, innovate and even future proof production processes.
Enter the UR+ Application Kits
The recent arrival of UR+ Application Kits –application-focused hardware/software tools designed to further streamline the deployment process– cobots are easier to get up and running than they have ever been. The UR+ range of Application Kits for Material Handling, for example, simplifies automation deployments from order and isolation picking applications to palletizing and de-palletizing.
In normal times, manufacturers embrace cobots to stay ahead of the competition. In these extraordinary times, the flexibility of cobot technologies could play a vital role in helping to keep manufacturing alive. In this series, I’ll be sharing the benefits of cobots with a focus on the most popular cobot applications.
