With newer innovations in automation happening at a never before seen
pace globally, industries are looking at automation far more
seriously now than at any other point in Indian Industrial history.
Industries which have traditionally been highly dependent on manual
labor are looking at automation very seriously. There could be a
whole pile of reasons for this, rising labor costs, issues with labor
unions, processes dependent too much on skilled labor, scarcity of
skilled labor, etc., etc..
A good example of an industry suffering from the above problems would
be the rubber industry. An industry I choose because most of my
limited experience in designing and building automation systems was
with the rubber industry. An industry which makes everything from
automobile tires to tiny oil seals. Processes are highly dependent on
labor. Even simple processes like loading and unloading from presses,
movement of raw material from store rooms to press sheds, movement of
finished goods from factory to storage sheds are dependent on a huge
number of laborers. These are only a small percentage of the zones
which are ripe for automation in such industries.
Automation of a process in a modern industry is quite simple
considering the sheer amount of off-the-shelf solutions available
from manufacturers like FESTO, Allen Bradley, Parker-Hannafin,
COGNEX, etc.. With reasonable exposure to the solutions available
from these giants, automation of a process becomes quite simple.
Now, the real challenge is in providing an automation solution to a
process which has been in place for nearly 50 years. Any process
which has been present in a factory for 5 decades tends to have
support systems built around it. I am a strong believer that an
automation system is not a standalone system like a laborer, it is
part of the product being manufactured i.e. the product design itself
needs to accommodate automation. A good example is automation of a
pressing a key in the key-way of perfectly round shaft. The press
force is around 300kgs. A simple pneumatic press should be able to do
it. But positioning the shaft perfectly for the insertion is the
challenge. Remember, you cannot go to high end vision and servo
solutions simply because the ROI (return of investment) needs to be
under 3 years. With the system going to replace a single operator
there is no way a vision-servo combo is going to be recovered within
3 years. Easiest way is to make a notch in the shaft, in such a way
that it doesn't affect its functionality and design a simple switch
based positioning system before pressing. Simple, right? Nope.
Convincing the supervisor, middle level management is close to
impossible. The fact that product design itself needs to be tweaked
considerably to accommodate automation needs to be accepted in a lot
of companies.
Another major challenge which arises during automation of decades old
processes is the machinery used in the processes. The machinery is,
in most cases, of equal age as the factory shed foundation. Which
means it was designed and built around manual labor. Even installing
modern safety equipment like the OMRON sensor curtain would be a
challenge. A good example would be the decades old curing presses
installed in the rubber industries. Curing presses are usually
positioned in rows. Now, modern automation system are very precise.
The main, obvious, difference between an automation system and a
manual laborer is that the automation system doesn't accommodate any
variations in the systems it is interacting with. But, the decades
old machines installed are not as accurate as their modern
equivalents. From their positioning, to their movements during
operation they are not designed to interact with any precision
automation system. To install, say for example, a single ABB robot on
a track to deal with, 3 presses would require these presses to be
positioned accurately and have their movements designed to
accommodate the robotic arm. Even cycle times, from press loading to
unloading, would have to be programmed to suit to robot movement.
To design a highly customized automation equipment around these
challenges is definitely not impossible. But its highly risky and
fraught with challenges. It would be far more fruitful if the
management can accept that automation is the future and if they are
serious about automation then their product, machinery and factory
need to be designed accordingly. It is not an easy overnight task, I
accept that. But this needs to be done as industries who are not into
automation will find it difficult to survive and compete with ones
who adapt fast in the coming decades.
