In the manufacturing industry, we find that outfits looking to make a robotic purchase often have some misconceptions about the technology they want to implement. For example, robotics used by large auto manufacturers is very different from the robotic tending machines used in other factories, and aside from appearance, it’s not widely known by business executives and purchasing agents what those differences entail. There are significant contrasts in capacity, safety, and programming that are important for anyone looking to make an automation upgrade to fully understand.
Key Differences Between Cobots and Industrial Robots
The simplest way to understand how cobots and industrial robots differ is that cobots are designed to work alongside human employees, while industrial robots do work in place of those employees. A cobot can assist employees with work that may be too dangerous, strenuous, or tedious for them to accomplish on their own, creating a safer, more efficient workplace without eliminating factory jobs involved in the actual fabrication of a product. By contrast, industrial robots are used to automate the manufacturing process almost entirely without human help on the manufacturing floor. This, in turn, frees up employees for more meaningful tasks that are less mundane and are less prone to repetitive motion injuries.
Cobots are also more easily programmable than industrial robots because they are capable of “learning” on the job. A factory worker can re-program a cobot simply by moving the arm along the desired track. From there, the cobot will “remember” the new movement and be able to repeat it on its own. Industrial robots cannot be so easily reprogrammed, and require an engineer to write new code for any changes in the process to be implemented.