Enhancing Productivity and Quality from Aerospace to Shipyards with Collaborative Robots

From the high pressures of supplying aerospace components to the complex environments of shipyards, manufacturers fight workforce shortages, inconsistent quality and productivity issues that create longer lead times or delayed deliveries. Welders in shipyards face significant challenges such as unergonomic positions, hazardous conditions, and the physical toll of working on large, complex structures. On the shop floor in aerospace, part quality issues and missed production quotas can severely impact profitability. Stress, lack of training, and rigid delivery deadlines often prevent addressing the root causes of all these problems. Easy-to-program collaborative robots (cobots) are revolutionizing these industries by enabling manufacturing in ways that traditional automation struggled to provide an ROI. Large, heavy, slow to configure automation is expensive and inflexible in an industry where agility is a competitive advantage. Cobots have evolved to handle complex weldments and perform tasks at a fraction of the cost of traditional automation, enhancing productivity by increasing arc time, expediting changeovers, and accelerating new part setups. Light-weight cobot portability allows them to be easily moved around shipyards and machines shops, performing long multi-pass welds & running overnight tending CNC machines boosting productivity, enhancing safety and simplifying usability. This presentation will provide real-world examples and case studies from various sites, demonstrating how cobots are utilized in shipyards and aerospace manufacturing to improve quality and delivery outcomes. Attendees will learn how cobot portability and easy redeployment are helping manufacturers improve their competitive position, reduced costs, and waste, eliminated production errors, and boosted productivity. Drawing on over two decades of manufacturing automation and leadership experience, the presentation will equip welders, manufacturing engineers, machinists, and production leaders with actionable tactics for starting their first portable cobot project and achieving operational excellence.