The vision statement for SDU I4.0Lab is
Make robotic high-mix low-volume production financially viable
There are several ways for decreasing the cost of high-mix low-volume production from making fast and easy offline programming to designing efficient collaborative robot cells. Different approaches will be suitable for different production scenarios and end-users; therefore, the scope of the SDU I4.0Lab is not limited by approach, but the following objectives shape the efforts within high-mix low-volume production:
- Decrease programming time. The time of robot programming can e.g. be decreased by the use of digital models and automatic generation of motion plans and robot controls or by programming by demonstration, where the models of the task are not initially generated. For both of these solutions to fit within the SDU I4.0Lab framework, it is required that data is collected and can be used for e.g. improvement of the process or vision-based failure detection.
- Decrease required competences for setup. The use of highly skilled labor needs to be decreased to cope with the shortage of such human resources. Therefore, ease of use is a fundamental necessity in high-mix low-volume production. This includes setup of systems combining robots, cameras and other sensors.
- Increase task complexity. Simple tasks can already now be setup quickly for high-mix low-volume production. It is however a goal to continuously increase the complexity of tasks that can easily be automated. This can be accomplished by developing tools for e.g. seamless integration of multiple production cells using mobile robots, and synergetic collaboration between humans and robots.
- Increase reliability and quality. A challenge when quickly setting up a robotic task is to guarantee high reliability, quality and efficiency of production; this limits the use of small batch robotic production. This problem should be solved by decreasing the need for testing by the use of digital models for quality assurance.
- Increase awareness. The awareness of methods for high-mix low-volume production should be increased at manufacturing companies. This is a key to making an impact with the developed technology. Especially companies with a low degree of automation should be approached to identify positive business cases.