Robotics Assembly

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BEIJING—Chinese manufacturers are increasingly investing in robotics to overcome the challenges of rising labor costs and fierce competition from emerging nations in South and Southeast Asia.

CARLSBAD, CA—Systems integrator Automation GT has built a multistation automated assembly system to make syringes. Designed for use in a Class 10,000 clean room, the system includes robots, vision systems and dispensing equipment.

STONY BROOK, NY—Before the faucet maker RSS Manufacturing & Phylrich installed a machine-tending robot, processing 1,500 units on a tube bender using manual labor would take three days. With the robot, the same job takes four hours.

SAITAMA, Japan—People and humanoid robots are working side by side on an assembly line at an assembly plant here that makes money-handling machines.

When specifying a motion control system for, say, a pick-and-place application on an automated assembly line, engineers have two choices.

WASHINGTON—ANSI has approved a new national robot safety standard. Developed by Robotic Industries Association (RIA), the ANSI/RIA R15.06-2012 standard has been updated for the first time since 1999 and is now harmonized with the International ISO 10218:2011 standard for robot manufacturers and integrators.

BEIJING—Foxconn Technology is on track with its goal to a create a “million robot army,” and it already has 20,000 robots in its factories.

PLEASANTON, CA—Adept Technology Inc. has received $2.6 million robot order from Castec International Corp. in Taiwan. The robots will be used in high-precision workcells to produce subassemblies for smart phones.

Twenty years ago, the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) created the Joint Advance Strike Technology (JAST) program. The goal of JAST was to develop aircraft, weapons and sensor technology that would replace disparate United States and United Kingdom aircraft with a single family of aircraft.

BOSTON—You’ll never understand your robot until you walk a mile in its screws. A new MIT study reveals that when co-working humans and robots cross-train, productivity improves.