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At its core, the definition of an industrial robot is actually fairly straightforward: it refers to any type of programmable, mechanical device that can be used in place of a person in this type of environment. More often than not they are used to perform tasks that are either dangerous or repetitive, all while freeing...

At Pioneer, system installation is an integral piece of our business. As a part of designing and building robotic and automation systems, installation is a requirement before a system is functional and deemed production worthy. Installation often does not include engineering startup support, debug, or on-site production support. We define installation as assembling the system...

Guidance for SME’s Considering Robotic Automation The automation environment for a Small to Medium Enterprise (SME) differs from the large companies with robotic automation on a large scale.  The SME typically has smaller production runs and needs to quickly change over their lines for the next product.  The ability to redeploy a robotic cell is...

Automating Existing Tire Manufacturing Plants  North America tire manufacturers face a conundrum; How to compete globally against new plants in low labor cost regions.  Currently established brands can charge higher prices by focusing on the high value market, such as speed rated tires and OE tire replacement. However, this advantage will diminish as foreign competitors improve quality and performance. ...

FANUC ZDT (Zero Down Time) and IIoT The Fourth Industrial Revolution (or Industry 4.0) is the ongoing automation of traditional manufacturing and industrial practices, using modern smart technology. Large-scale machine-to-machine communication (M2M) and the internet of things (IoT) are integrated for increased automation, improved communication and self-monitoring, and production of smart machines that can analyze...

Why Tire Companies Seek OEM Business Supplying tires to the automakers has long been a part of tire companies’ strategy.  There is prestige in being fitting to new and exciting vehicles and stability in the long production runs OEM’s demand.  When it is time to replace these tires many owners will select the same brand...

The Shape of Things to Come: Projections for Robotics in 2021 and Beyond If you had to sum up the major theme of 2020 as far as robotics was concerned in a single word, “acceleration” would undoubtedly be it. The technology at the heart of these robotics systems and machines took a major leap forward...

The Story So Far: Looking Back at the Top Robotics Trends of 2020   As a new year is upon us yet again, it’s important to take a moment to appreciate just how far we’ve come in the last 365 days. At the beginning of 2020, there were a number of “hot trends” that were...

Robot Programming Standards We are exposed to the benefits of Standards in everyday life.  Consider traffic signals, how would we navigate the roads without everyone understanding the colors of a traffic light.  In Robotics there is nascent effort to create a standard programming language.  Currently each robot manufacturer uses a proprietary software language.  Large customers...