ABB Robotics
ABB Robotics strengths presentation - EBS Automation is a Certified Partner of ABB Robotics
A Global Leader in power and automation technologies
Leading market positions in main businesses

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- 117,000 employees in about 100 countires
- $32 billion in revenue (2009)
- formed in 1988 merger of Swiss & Swedish engineering companies
- Predecessors founded in 1883 and 1891
- Publicly owned company with head office in Switzerland
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How ABB is Organsied
Five Global Divisions
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| Power Products |
Power systems |
Discrete Automation and Motion |
Low voltage Products |
Process Automation |
| $11.2 billion |
$6.5 billion |
$5.4 billion |
$4.1 billion |
$7.8 billion |
ABB’s portfolio covers:
- Electricals, automation, controls and instrumentation for power generation and industrial processes.
- Power transmission
- Distribution solutions
- Low-voltage products
- Robots and robot systems
Robotics Division
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2010 orders $1.6 billion
5000 employers in order 49 countries
Manufacturing in 3 regions, Europe, Asia & America
Sales & Service operations in over 50 countries & more than 100 locations
Introductions painting robots in 1969 and the worlds first commercially available electric robot in 1974
Over 180,000 robots installed worldwide at end 2010 |
New Key Drivers of Global Economic Growth
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• Rise of emerging markets • Demographics • Information and Communication Technology • The End of Oil • New Capitalism • The Green Economy |
Demographic Trend Developed Countries
Demographic Trend Emerging Economies

Growing Environmental Concerns
Retailers leverage on
Global Warming and
Sustainable use of
resources to develop an
attractive brand image

Hand packing

Robotics Packing
Retailers Wish List
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- Satisfied consumers
- Repeat sales
- More efficient in-store operations
- Manual Labour?!
- Improve on-shelf availability
- Improve consistency of product quality
- Green Image
- Flexible response
- Cash is king
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Europe Food & Beverage Market 2009

99% of the number of companies are SME 60% of the turnover is created by Larger Companies

Large Companies are more productive Added Value/employee in €1.000


Industrial Robots/10.000 inhabitants

TOP 5 Countries 2006-2009

Strongly Growing Markets

Low cost competition to automation

Market Trends
- Increasing production capacity in “new” countries
- Reduction of production cost in “old” economies driven by Retail Power
- Lack of skilled and/or cheap labour
- Reduction of run sizes and explosion of speciality brands vs. Global Branding
- More Fresh Food demands shorter Time To Market
- Quality and Hygiene standards e.g.HACCP and AIB
- Increasing demand for automated Warehouse and Distribution centres
Robots in Fiction
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1940 Asimov's robot short Stories 1940 Robbie (aka Strang Playfellow) 1941 Reason The positronic brain
1942 Runaround First use of the word “Robotics” Introduced the 3 laws of Robotics |
Asimov’s 3 Laws of Robotics
- A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm
- A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law
- A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or second Laws
Robots in History & Fiction
- Robots are depicted as soul-less humans
- The depiction arises from, and allows exploration of, questions regarding the nature of humanity
- These depictions have little to do with industrial robots
- BUT
- We borrowed the terms and aspirations
- The ideas form the pre-conceptions of the general public & some customer groups
The World's First Robot
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Leonard da Vinci’s rebot design from 1495
A knight in German-Italian medieval armor
- Sitting up
- Moving its arms
- Moving its neck
- Moving its jaw
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Digesting Duck was created by Jaques de Jacques de Vaucanson in 1739 It was able to eat grains, flap its wing and excrete! |
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The Human machine Barbarossa with his creator 1900 |
Some Milestones of the Industrial Robot
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1926, Westinghouse Televox: first robot put to useful work
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1942, Isaac Asimov used “Robotics” for the first time in “I, Robot”
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1946, George Devol patented the first teachable robot
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1956, Joseph Engelberg & George first robot company, Unimation
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1961, Unimate installed the first industrial robot installed at GM, US serving a die casting machine
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1966, Ole Molaug developed his Trallfa paint robot. First sold in 1969. Now ABB
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1967, Unimation agreement with Kawasaki Triggered the Japanese robot industry
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1971, Cincinnati Milacron launched the first mini computer controlled robot |
First Electical Robot
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- 1973 ASE (ABB)
Launched the first electrical, mircro-processor controlled, anthropomorphic robot
- Used for polishing of stainless steel tubes
- First customer: Magnusson, Sweden
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Automation Strategy
- Automation is an opportunity for
- A competitive edge
- A means to level the playing field
- Method to protect your workforce
- Permanently fix issues
- Automation is not
- Viable for the sake of Automation
- Justifiable based on “quality improvement“ alone
- Valuable based on hypothetical returns
- Know the competition of Robotics Automation
- Limited available capital means your project competes with everything else the corporation might want to buy
- Robotic automation competes with
- Manual labour,
- Hard automation,
- Contract manufacturing,
- Offshore manufacturing.

Hand packing

Robotics Packing
Justification of Robotic Automation
- Benefits of robotics in the food industry
- Labour savings
- Reduced sickness
- Overcoming potential and existing labour shortages
- More information through data transfer
- Increase of production through higher efficiency
- Less scrap and therefore better product quality
Financial Data to be collected:
- Basic Data
- Investment
- Revenue of liquidation
- Economic life of equipment
- Maximum performance (units./year)
- Interest rate
- Net cash flow
- Fixed annual cost
- Depreciation
- Interest
- Warranty costs
- Floor operating costs
- Fixed overhead
- Other fixed cost
- Variable annual cost
- Salaries and wages
- Workers compensation cost
- Cost of materials
- Cost of energy consumption
- Other variable cost
- A first quick check
- Projected Capital Cost
- Annual Savings
Capital Cost / Annual Savings = Payback in Years
- Check: Good or Bad Opportunity?
- Is the estimated payback realistic?
- What are the risks of implementing the equipment?
- Is the solution flexible or is it just dedicated for a specific purpose?
- Is this the best way to give customers what they want?
- Details to consider in payback calculations
- Fix product quality/inconsistency
- Improved safety
- Increased manufacturing flexibility
- Improved operations reliability
- Improved regulatory compliance
- Increased product yields
- Increased productivity
- Increased production
- Reduced manufacturing costs
- Reduced labour
- Reduced scrap
- Reduced floor space
Robots v Manual Labour

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Typical hourly operating expense per employee per hour: £12.45 |
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Typical hourly operating expense per robot per hour: £5.00
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- Why use a robot based solution?
- ABB Robot is standard product (over 18,000 in 2011, 200,000+ total in use)
- Already established on the market (food, automotive, consumer,..)
- Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) > 65,000 hours
- High availability 99.6 % Up time
- High accuracy repeatability 0.1 mm
- High Flexibility
- Easy to reuse in new lines
- Less maintenance
- Less risk of operator injury

Small Robot Family

Medium Robot Family

Large Robot Family

IRB 360 Family

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| Modular Versions |
Panel Mounted Versions |
NEW: IRC5 Compact |
Graphical User Interface |
- Multi-robot control, up to 36 axis, with MultiMove
- Programmable user interface with joystick motion control with FlexPendant
- World leading motion control with TruMove & QuickMove
- “Next generation safety” with SafeMove
- Powerful connectivity through network interfaces

Picking
- Picking questions
- What is the picking operation – is it for primary packaging, collation, transfer or another application
- What are the area conditions?
- Is it a washdown area?
- Is it high risk?
- What are the environmental conditions? – controlled temperature
- What cleaning agents are used
- What water pressure is used for clean down? – Extreme pressures can cause problems with seals
- How many different products are there?
- Do more than one product come down the same line?
- How many products per minute? (ensure information is available for each product)
- How are the products presented? – are they under control or at random
- Is vision required?
- How many robots will be needed to ensure all throughput is handled?
- How many cameras? (usually only on infeed)
- Will camera information be distributed to each robot or will each robot need it’s own camera?
- Note: (Check for overlapping product as this will effect how many cameras are required)
- What is the lighting conditions at the factory? External variations in sunlight will effect the vision system – Ultra violet enclosed loght box probably will be required
- Is conveyor tracking required?
- Are any inspection processes required (shape, colour)
- With more than one robot is load sharing required (balncing infeed to flow wrappers for example)
- How many product infeed lines?
- Is the product infeed line continuous or indexing?
- If continuous is it fixed speed or variable?
- Is the product to be placed into trays, cases or any other unit?
- What is the packing format?
- How many items per layer?
- How many layers?
- Is there a weave pattern?
- What is the collation format?
- If there is outer packaging how is presented to the cell
- What is it ?– acetate, carton, case, tray or other
- Is a tray de-nester required?
- Is the case pre – erected?
- Are the bottom flaps folded and taped or glued?
- Is the outfeed conveyor continuously moving or indexing?
- Is it flyted?
- If continuous is it fixed or variable speed?
- Note: If infeed or outfeed conveyor is variable speed an encoder will need fitting to each conveyor and conveyor tracking option will be required on the robot with an encoder interface card for each encoder used
- Notes:
- Try to get a video of the current operation
- Find out if line speeds are likely to be increased
- Check floor space availability
- Check for any height restrictions
- See how the product can be brought under control. – Are separating conveyor sections and / or product guides needed
- What sort of product presentation and collation will be needed
- With high speed picking be careful if contra flow is asked for. Schubert and SIG have patents in place. Parallel flow will work as well although a few products may be missed and a few packaging units may not be full (picked up at check weigher)

Packaging
- Packing questions
- Is the packing operation in the high or low risk area
- How many different products are there?
- Do more than one product come down the same line?
- How many products per minute? (ensure information is available for each product)
- How many product infeed lines?
- Is the product infeed line continuous or indexing?
- If continuous is it fixed speed or variable?
- Are the product packed into crates, trays, cases or any other unit? What are their sizes?
- What is the packing format?
- How many items per layer?
- How many layers?
- Is there a weave pattern?
- Are there any layer seperators?
- How is the outer packaging presented to the cell
- Is the case pre – erected?
- Are the bottom flaps folded and taped or glued?
- If a crate are the bale handles in the open position?
- Is the outfeed conveyor continuously moving or indexing?
- If continuous is it fixed or variable speed?
- Note: If infeed or outfeed conveyor is variable speed an encoder will need fitting to each conveyor and conveyor tracking option will be required on the robot with an encoder interface card for each encoder used
- Is flap closing and top sealing part of the scope of supply if a case is used?
- Must bale handles be put to the closed position if a crate is used? If yes is there one or two closed positions?
- Notes:
- Try to get a video of the current operation
- Find out if line speeds are likely to be increased
- Check floor space availability
- Check for any height restrictions
- See how the product can be brought under control. – Are separating conveyor sections and / or product guides needed
- What sort of product presentation and collation will be needed

Palletizing
- Questions:
- How many infeeds? (product Infeeds)
- Are the infeeds dedicated to one product?
- Is the product narrow or wide edge leading?
- Infeed collation:
- X number in line
- 2 or more rows of x number
- How many palletizing positions (outfeeds)
- How will the empty pallets be put in place? Automatic infeed from a pallet magazine, robot placement from a fixed magazine (cycle time permitting), pallet transfer carriage
- How will the full pallets be removed?
- Manual removal and placement of an empty pallet is time consuming and will require a great deal of product accumulation and an almost full time person.
- Automatic outfeed is preferred through muted light beams to a point where FLT removal is available
- How many products?
- Sizes and weights of cases or trays (do trays have bale handles and if so how many close positions (1 or 2)
- Do we have to open / close bale handles?
- With cases are they taped or hot melt?
- What are the pallet patterns?
- Does there have to be a bar code on the outside of each side of the stack?
- What are the layer patterns?
- Is there a weave (usually with cases or sacks, but never with interlocking or nesting crates or trays)
- Is there a base sheet?
- Are there layer separators? (anti slip sheets)
- How thick are they? 14 gauge plus is ok any thinner you are prone to pick up 2 or 3 at a time
- What products are to be palletized? ( cases, trays, cartons, shrink wrapped product)
- What type of pallets? (chep (1200 x 1000), euro (1000 x 800), non standard)
- Pallets must be of a good quality
- Weight of product
- Important when deciding which robot especially with multiple picks
- What floor space is available
- Typical 2 infeed 2 outfeed cell will require 4.5m x 6m minimum
- What height is available?
- 3.5m minimum needed to palletise to a typical pallet height of 2.8m

RobotWare for "easy to use" interfaces
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Spot welding and Arc welding
Plastics & Die Casting
Machining FC & Machine Tending
Assembly & Packagaing
Press tending |
RobotStudio: simulation & off-line programming
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- Create a common view in the planning stage
- Verify tooling and fixtures in the design stage
- Program robots faster in the start-up stage
- Modify programs without downtime in the production stage
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Robots Increase production output rates
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 “We’ve had over 99% availability over the last 4 years and now have 16 systems installed.” |
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Client
- Astrazenica
- Sweden
- Application - Packing
- Automated case packing line for tablets
- System installed by ABB
Key Drivers & Benefits
- Higher capacity in comparison to manual lines
- Flexibility with 4 sizes of product cartons
- Improvement of primary and secondary packing quality
- Tablets are moisture sensitive
- Cleaner environment for employees
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Robots improve quality of work for employees
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 ."The introduction of robots means that people no longer have to do unpleasant and fiddly jobs anymore ” Dulcesol
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Client Dulcesol, Ghandia Spain Application IRB 340 picking and packing croissants and Napolitanas System installed by Dulcesol
Key Drivers & Benefits
? Fewer sick days: sick days taken owing to conditions such as tendonitis caused by repetitive tasks almost disappeared ? Improved hygiene conditions – products are not touched by human hands
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Robots increase manufacturing flexibility
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 “Shingled slices can be quickly and perfectly handled with a level of precision no human could ever achieve.”
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Client Fernebrand Chark, Borås, Sweden
Application Slicing and packing of cooked meat into 26 pack variations and sizes with an IRB 340 robot
Key Drivers & Benefits
- More hygienic
- Greater consistency and precision in packing
- Less manpower required
- Better safety
- Increased output of more than 50 packs per minute
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Kjell Fernebrand
Fernebrand Chark
Robots improve quality and consistency
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 ”The introduction of robots means that people no longer have to do unpleasant and fiddly jobs anymore ”
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Client CooperVision, Puerto Rico
Application IRB 340 picking and packing wet contact lenses
System installed by RTS Flexible Systems
Key Drivers & Benefits
- More hygienic
- Greater consistency and precision in packing
- Less manpower required
- Increased output of more than 200 lenses per minute
- Improved product quality
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Robots help reduce capital costs
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 “The flexibility of the robot system means that it is capable of meeting new demands which may arise in the future”
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Client Cederroth Sweden
Application - Packaging Complete automated packaging solution with 14 different packing formats System installed by Skinetta
Key Drivers & Benefits One packing line for all products offering true flexibility Reduction of line space taken Increased productivity Full integration with installed equipment More cost effective solution |
Robots reduce material waste
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 “Because there are fewer breakages, fewer people are needed to check the packaged pretzels & replace the broken ones by hand.
Walter Fuchs, Roland Murten
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Client Roland Murten AG Murten, Switzerland
Application – High Speed Picking/Packing High Speed packing of baked pretzels in vacuum formed trays System installed by ABB Switzerland
Key Drivers & Benefits
- Breakage's have reduced from 12% to 4%
- 134 kilograms of pretzels are packed every hour
- Reduced noise levels and improved working environment for employees
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Robots Improve working conditions
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 “I don’t think it would be humane to have people doing the robots’ tasks.”
Christer Käll
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Client ICA, Västerås, Sweden
Application Packing and stacking of meat trays by 8 IRB 6600 robots. System installed by Swisslog, Switzerland
Key Drivers & Benefits Cost-savings with robots doing the work of 100 people Health and safety of workers no longer at risk from heavy lifting and cold environment Flexibility to handle a variety of tasks |
In 2011 Robots and enhanced Automation are more then ever essential in order to:
- Reduce operating cost
- Reduce waste
- Reach superior hygiene levels
- Manage complexity








