If you attended the International Woodworking Fair (IWF) in Atlanta this year, then you saw robots and lots of them. This was the same takeaway I had two years ago. The trend is crystal clear. The evolution is happening, and I figured I’d share what I saw and where things seem to be heading.
It reminds me of years ago, when large shop owners looking to get the next edge in manufacturing, would visit large wood manufacturing plants in Europe and see the massive lines of machinery with few if any employees on the shop floor. This is how technology starts. It starts with the large companies that can afford to pay the high prices of cutting-edge technology, because even a slight improvement to their bottom line means a lot of money saved.
Over the years, the systems are improved, costs come down, space requirements shrink and it becomes more accessible to medium shops and eventually gets down to the small shops.
Think of computers… Once they were very expensive, complicated and very large. Now, you can buy a powerhouse of a computer in a small format for not much money. The same goes for manufacturing technology. Automating production is no longer for the massive companies in Europe. The robotic applications are popping up in various parts of the manufacturing process.
One of the biggest areas robotic automation has helped automate is the CNC machine. From labelling the parts on the sheet before they are cut, to loading the sheet on the cutting surface, to removing the parts after they’ve been cut, to sorting them, to putting them through the edge bander and dowel machine. The unloading used to be the bottleneck, but at IWF, I saw this bottleneck move back to cutting speed on the CNC. There were improved sorting and picking methods that have been refined and are showing greater efficiencies. I saw impressive sorting systems and robot heads that could pick up multiple parts at a time, instead of one by one. Also, the floorspace needed for these systems is much smaller than what it used to be just a few years ago.
I also saw smaller robots working on sanding and finishing. We can agree that these are not usually the most sought-after departments to work in. If you have trouble finding and keeping staff, sanding and finishing are definitely at the top of the list for challenging positions to fill. These robots are not fully eliminating the people, but rather empowering them to produce much more while lightening the workload for the humans.
Another area coming along in its evolution is robotic assembly. This is not new, but the automatic assembly used to be mainly limited to installing hardware in the cabinet ends and humans would finish the assembly. We’re now assembling cabinets in addition to installing hardware.
The nice thing about the technology progress is it’s coming down in price and size as well. Mid-sized shops are now able to start taking advantage of these systems. This is why I believe that attending trade shows is such a huge boost for improving your business.
You get to see what’s out there and if you make it a habit of attending these shows, then you get to see the evolution and the direction.
It’s like having a crystal ball.
