MT Magazine May/June 2024

Is a Cobot Right for You? Key questions to consider when it comes to deploying collaborative robots – better

known as “cobots.” BY GARY S. VASILASH CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Statistics from Statista show that in 2018, 11,550 collaborative robots – aka “cobots” – were sold in the U.S. market. The statistical source projects that in 2025 that number will reach 134,400 units. Given that that’s a whopping 1,064% increase, this raises the questions of just what a cobot is in the context of industrial robots as well as use – and not-use – cases for the equipment. But some people may recall the early days of what are now considered “typical” industrial robots – the six-axis manipulators that come in sizes from small to gargantuan. In some cases companies were purchasing one fundamentally because they wanted to be considered current (and possibly cool). This was, in effect, somewhat like putting an industrial robot in the lobby for bragging rights and not on the factory floor, where it would be used to do actual work. Then there were those instances when management figured that they were making a big investment in robots, so they were going to install that equipment in the most difficult applications they had on the factory floor. After all, wasn’t that what they were good for? Well, yes, but not for one’s first outing with the programmable manipulators. So, whether it was having one as a “showcase” or putting the equipment in places that were extraordinarily complex, there was undoubtedly a delay in what could have been a quicker and more widespread deployment of this automation. But while that tech has become common in factories – generally in medium to larger facilities but even in some smaller ones – cobots, while growing in number, are still somewhat new to many companies, filling a niche between the now-traditional six-axis devices and manual workers – or directly adjacent to other automation and humans. What’s more, this equipment can be of greater interest not only to those with larger facilities but small ones, as well.