Production Facility Robot Safety Productivity Contradiction
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional production systems with industrial robots require safety walls to separate robot and human work areas, leading to inefficiencies during production abnormalities, setup changes, and manual work processes, as they necessitate complete robot stops and large-scale device configurations.
Innovation Solution
A production facility design incorporating a transfer robot with a product access position on its back side and an internal transfer device that allows human workers to perform tasks from outside the robot's action area, enabling restoration, setup changes, and manual work without stopping the robot, thus maintaining production efficiency.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a safety wall is installed to separate robot and human work areas, then robot safety is improved, but production efficiency deteriorates due to complete stops during restoration work and setup changes
Solution Approach 1:
The work area is segmented into a robot work area and a human work area that are spatially separated but functionally connected. The human work area is positioned adjacent to the robot work area, allowing workers to access the robot side without entering the dangerous zone, thus maintaining safety while enabling continuous operation during maintenance and setup activities
Solution Approach 2:
A transfer device serves as an intermediary mechanism between the human work area and the robot work area. This transfer device allows products to be moved between areas without requiring workers to enter the robot's action area or the robot to stop operation, thus resolving the contradiction between safety and productivity
2Reliability
If a dedicated device for manual work is installed outside the robot's action area, then safety is improved, but device complexity and production area increase
Solution Approach 1:
The transfer device performs multiple functions: it transfers products between the human work area and robot work area, serves as a boundary interface for safety separation, and enables both manual operations and robot operations to proceed simultaneously without requiring separate dedicated devices outside the action area
Solution Approach 2:
The human work area and robot work area are merged into a closely integrated system where the transfer device acts as a shared interface. This merging eliminates the need for separate external manual work devices while maintaining safety through the transfer device's mediating function
Data Source
AI summary
Provided is a production facility which allows a worker to perform manual works such as restoration, setting change, and manufacturing, without entering an action area of a robot. The production facility includes a casing, a swaging as a dedicated device housed in the casing, for performing swaging using a boot band, and an internal transfer device. A human work area on the front side of the production facility and an action area of a transfer robot on the back side of the production facility are separated by the swaging device and the casing. The worker positioned on the front side of the production facility operates swaging device without entering the action area of the transfer robot so that the transfer robot need not be stopped when the work is performed.