b'Robot to the Rescue Thepaybackperiodcangetsolution, he noted. There was no cloudy when an end user losesROI for that piece of this process. focus of the core objective, poten- We just explained to the customer interfaces). tially over automating a process.that although it would be a nice Automation Solutions will gener- For example, Automation Solutionsthing to do, we want to focus on the ally start a conversation about howreached an agreement in princi- things that have the most ROI.a customer loads and unloads partsple for the design, price and pro- Thecompanyssolutionsfre-into and out of a machine, Nord- jected ROI of one customers pro- quently leverage collaborative ro-ness said, noting thats somethingcess, Nordness said, but then thebots, which offer scalability and af-we do really well. He added, how- manufacturer started talking aboutfordability, he said. There is a cost, ever, that stressful challenges mayadding conveyors and additionalfor instance, of placing a barrier arise when developing solutions forrobots to transport parts from ship- around a robot that cannot work applications that the integrator hasping containers into the machine. collaboratively with humans. If you not previously seen. We are solv- It skyrocketed the cost of thehave to put a fence around a robot ing new problems all the time. and you dont have the room to Regardless of the automationabout the authordo that, he said, you have to get scenario, one requirement for allmore room, and sometimes thats customers is a quick return on in- Alan Richter isnot possible. Factories cant put an vestment. A lot of Automation Solu- editor-at-largeaddition on to house a robot.tions projects must deliver ROI inof CTE. ContactIn addition, the process for re-one year, he said. What we foundhim at alanr@programming and repurposing a is that usually projects get fundedctemedia.com. cobot is quick and straightforward. when the ROI is below three years. If youre running some process The human-machine interface can be a critical component of an automation system.Automation Solutions32SEPTEMBER 2022 Automation.indd 32 8/17/22 10:51 AM'