If you are a business person, you must have already asked yourself “Why do I invest in automation?” “If I robotize a couple of manufacturing areas, when will it pay off?” “What’s the difference between robotization and automation?” But the first your question might be, whether automation or robotics are suitable for your business at all. Briefly speaking, it depends on what your business needs right now.
But if you take it a little bit more serious, we have to answer 3 questions:
– Do your employees often do repetitive work?
– Do your employees’ “just doing their jobs” lower the planned productivity?
– Do you have physical or virtual tasks?
If you answered at least one “Yes” then this area can apply for automation. Depending on the process (virtual or physical), you can automate software, or automate/robotize manufacturing.
Let’s take a closer look at each option.
What does automation mean?
In the era of Industry 4.0, in many industries, automation is very acute. Now, there are two main types of automation: software automation and industrial automation.
Automation of software is the process when programs perform the tasks that usually perform people who work with software.
Business Process Automation (BPA) is a multi-level business process optimization strategy that includes the formalization of all processes in the business and their integration into automation software. The introduction of this type of automation may require a radical restructuring of the business.
Robotic processes automation (RPA) refers to “software robots” that are programmed to use the software to perform the tasks. This technology is easier to integrate into existing business processes.
What does robotization mean?
Robots are programmable machines that can perform a series of operations autonomously or semi-automatically. They are guided in the space by sensors and cameras. Robots can be programmed to perform a tray of tasks, thus easily be applied in different areas of production. The market of industrial robots can offer many solutions from different manufacturers easing it for a business person to make the right choice. Of course, the best would be to contact the representative-companies who already have the data of the area that you need.
What is behind automation of manufacturing?
When we refer to the concepts of “automation” and “robotics”, we usually talk about automation of industrial manufacturing that deals with physical processes. They include robots and control systems that automate performing of industrial tasks.
Taking to account all the above said, what would be the answer to the question: can robots perform processes in manufacturing? If you answer “yes”, please consider robotization option for your business.