Sri Sai Markers And Engravers Paints The Way To Better Quality
Case in point: Sri Sai Markers and Engravers
At a glance
Focus: Sri Sai Markers And Engravers Paints The Way To Better Quality.
Challenge: As Sri Sai provided components to various automobile manufacturers, they required a high level of precision in their work.
Approach: The SME deployed the UR5 cobot in 2018 on their shop floor, which allowed humans to work safely alongside it without taking up a large amount of the effort.
Impact: The deployment of the UR5 cobot proved to be a great solution for these problems as the cobot was human friendly allowing the employees of the manufacturer to feel safe.
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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Sri Sai Markers and Engravers
Sri Sai Markers and Engravers began in 2013 with a manpower of 2-3 people and transformed into a 100-employee SME by 2018. Sri Sai supplies components that are laser-engraved and spray painted to some of India’s largest automobile companies by engraving, marking, welding and cutting various industrial products.
Business challenge
As Sri Sai provided components to various automobile manufacturers, they required a high level of precision in their work.
As Sri Sai provided components to various automobile manufacturers, they required a high level of precision in their work. The paint application required consistency and precision to ensure high quality laser engravings on the components. It was a challenge for them to consistently follow numerous parameters that would ensure that laser engravings were up to the mark when everything was done manually, especially those relating to the thickness of paint deposit.
Although spray painting is done mostly manually in factories in India, there was an increasing demand for automated spray painting from Sri Sai’s clients. This process was especially driven by the immense precision required in ensuring high-quality laser engravings on the various products.
One of Sri Sai’s biggest concerns was a robotic solution that would fit in a confined space, as they did not have the liberty to invest in traditional robots which would take up much of their shop floor as they had a very constrained space. Apart from this, they were also concerned about the safety of their employees.
Another issue was flexibility - they wanted a flexible solution to ensure thorough spray painting and one which was easy to operate, so that the shop floor workers could learn how to use it.
Industry 4.0 solution
The SME deployed the UR5 cobot in 2018 on their shop floor, which allowed humans to work safely alongside it without taking up a large amount of the available space.
Key benefits
| Area | Outcome |
|---|---|
| Safety & Workforce | The deployment of the UR5 cobot proved to be a great solution for these problems as the cobot was human friendly allowing the employees of the manufacturer to work alongside it without fearing for their safety. Not only that, but due to this feature there was no need for any protective fencing around the cobot, making it take up very less space in the work place. |
| Safety & Workforce | Another huge plus for the SME was that the cobot could be flexibly deployed by Sai’s very own employees to carry out various applications on the shop floor, thereby ensuring no loss of jobs. As these cobots were not deployed to replace human employees but to only act as assistants, employees could instead focus on nurturing their creativity for their various applications. |
| Safety & Workforce | The employees were thus upskilled to learn how to use the cobot independently, and said it was as easy as using a smartphone. |
| Operational Benefit | With automation, the new components saw a consistency and precision that would have otherwise been very difficult to achieve manually. This also ensured that the SME could meet the rising demands from their clients with ease. |
| Quality | Sri Sai Markers & Engravers witnessed immense improvements in merely 2 months, with a huge reduction in rate of rejections and rework. |
Technologies used
What they said
"Being a small-scale company, we had to think of how and where to set up the robot. We were also concerned about the safety of our workers. [..] We are seeing great results. All the operators are already handling the cobots independently. They have also been assured that they will not be losing their jobs because of the robot."