Why The World's Third Largest Motorcycle Manufacturer Opted For Universal Robots.
Case in point: Bajaj Auto
At a glance
Focus: Why The World's Third Largest Motorcycle Manufacturer Opted For Universal Robots.
Challenge: Two-wheeler assembly lines were highly labor intensive, spatially challenged and had physically taxing movements that required high end precision.
Approach: Bajaj was the first company in India to use collaborative robots, back in 2010, opening up the doors to a future in safe automation for mass manufacturing.
Impact: The key benefits of Universal Robots’ products for BAJAJ are compactness, low pay back period, flexibility, light weight, cost-effectiveness and accuracy.
Universal Robots
Universal Robots has reinvented industrial robotics with lightweight and flexible robot arms, dubbed "cobots" (collaborative robots), which are built on the concept of Human Robot Collaboration, or HRC. These Danish-designed cobots automate production across businesses of all sizes and industries – even in SMEs that regard automation as prohibitively expensive, cumbersome, and difficult to integrate. With over 44,000 cobots installed around the globe as of today, Universal Robots makes robot technology accessible to all levels of industry in a multitude of applications, and optimizes production in ever-expanding markets. By offering a user-friendly, flexible, and affordable cobot, Universal Robots lowers the automation barrier, enabling automation in areas previously considered too complex or costly to automate.
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Bajaj Auto
Founded in 1945, BAJAJ Auto is one of the world’s largest two-wheeler and three-wheeler manufacturers. Its headquarters are situated in Pune, where they manufacture motorcycles, scooters and auto rickshaws.
Business challenge
Two-wheeler assembly lines were highly labor intensive, spatially challenged and had physically taxing movements that required high end precision.
Two-wheeler assembly lines were highly labor intensive, spatially challenged and had physically taxing movements that required high end precision. Around 50% of the workforce were women, who found it difficult to operate these intensive assembly lines as they were highly physically taxing.
There were enormous ergonomic risks involved which could cause ergonomic risk to the employees due to highly repetitive tasks and static postures over a long period of time.
While standardization of models was a key tenet of Bajaj’s success in the market, it was rapidly expanding its production capabilities due to the growing scale of multiple models and the wide-ranging number of vehicles supplied in the market. The key then was to find a standardized automation solution that could be horizontally deployed and that could provide the productivity, flexibility and reliability that Bajaj’s workers could capitalize upon.
Industry 4.0 solution
Bajaj was the first company in India to use collaborative robots, back in 2010, opening up the doors to a future in safe automation for mass production. Today, Bajaj has over 150 cobots deployed in their factory.
After an intensive study of the options that were available in the market, Bajaj Auto chose Universal Robots primarily due to the collaborative nature of the robots, which they event went to the UR headquarters in Denmark to research. Bajaj required products that were cost-effective and safe to work with for their employees and it was these features that ultimately convinced Bajaj Auto about the suitability of Universal Robots for its standardized offerings.
After 3 months of extensive testing of Universal Robots’ cobots at its facilities, Bajaj deployed Universal Robots’ cobots as a standardized solution for all its functional requirements. Several processes such as material handling and machine tending were collaboratively handled by our cobots and Bajaj employees.
Moreover, new decal applications which are now patented by Bajaj, were also devised by the company to make the most out of the flexibility provided by the cobots.
The subsequent outputs provided by the assembly lines are of high quality and are very easy to work with. The physically challenging parts are taken care of, which enables women employees to work safely with the automated technology.
Key benefits
| Area | Outcome |
|---|---|
| Quality | The key benefits of Universal Robots’ products for BAJAJ are compactness, low pay back period, flexibility, light weight, cost-effectiveness, accuracy and safety. |
| Safety & Workforce | Repetitive tasks such as bolt tightening were re-assigned to the cobots, thus reducing the ergonomic risks greatly. Employees can now work on tasks that did not provide manual stress, thus resulting in a safe and healthy environment. |
| Safety & Workforce | As almost 50% of Bajaj’s workforce is comprises of women, and automating with cobots empowered the female workforce to be able to work on the assembly lines, using cobots to handle jobs that were once too physically taxing. This played a part in the empowerment of women, who could now work alongside men and perform the same tasks. |
| Energy & Sustainability | Other benefits such as zero annual maintenance costs, reduced power consumption and retention of IP within the company are also organically driving forward the growth of the organization. |
Technologies used
What they said
"We found that UR cobots were very compact, light in weight, they didn’t cost as much as other robots did. And most significantly, they were very safe to work with human beings because they were collaborative in nature."