Frequently Asked Questions
iCobots in industry
There is a shortage of manpower in the industry – on the one hand, a small number of young people who want to work for a long time in manufacturing plants; On the other hand, old workers are retiring while increasing shortages.
As a result, some factory owners have had to close production lines in Israel to copy them to China and other countries where there is manpower that meets their needs. The absorption of industrial Cobots with the help of iCobots and their addition to existing work teams will increase productivity and return production lines to Israel. These processes began in the US and Germany, replacing the Chinese worker with local automation.
The low price of the Cobots along with a very short implementation process will return the total cost of ownership in about a year! The cobot is tailored to existing work positions, so incorporating it into the work environment does not require special preparation within minutes. The iCobots Cobots can be trained by factory workers themselves, which saves significant training and service costs on behalf of the manufacturer. Others, a fact that significantly increases labor productivity.
iCobots’ ability to work in humans alongside simplicity of operation and their low cost makes them accessible to small companies as big ones. The Cobots are becoming very popular in the global industry, and so far tens of thousands of units have been sold in the West and the Far East, in Israel as of 2018, less than 100 units have been implemented, most by iCobots.
The iCobots Cobots can be used in the industry for unloading and recharging, automating metalworking tasks, improving CNC machine cycle times, operating plastic injection stands, packaging tasks, printing circuitry, testing and testing electronic components, and more.
Absolutely. A wide range of indicators and signals can be obtained from other machines in the workspace as well as from internal and external sensors located in Cobot itself. In many cases, the Cobot sends signals or presses machine buttons in its workspace to enable, stop, open, or close them.
In fact, this is one of the important news that the Cobots bring to the workspace. They are equipped with sensors that quickly detect any action that goes beyond the settings set by the employees themselves and create a collaborative and safe working environment than ever before.
The Cobots learn their task in just a few hours. In most cases, this is not complex software that requires complex code writing but a simple and short implementation based on the imitation of the traffic required to perform the tasks. Some of the Cobots we offer can be transported from one job post to another for multitasking in a remarkably short amount of time.
From a general idea to successful implementation
Maybe, we would love to come and think with you together, you will bring the coffee and knowledge about the needs of the organization, we will bring the methodology and experience, and if we agree that there is a need and ability match, we will move forward.
In the conversation we will try to answer two key questions: </ p>
Is the Cobot suitable for the job position?
- Will the cobot lead to ROI in less than 18 months?
- If the answers to both of these questions are positive, then you should apply Cobot to your production floor!
You should know: In Cobot Implementation we are going to ask the following questions:
- Is the position a boring, dangerous, dirty or difficult manual action?
- Are these actions Lifting loads up to 10 kg?
- Does the position work over 9 hours a day 5 days a week?
- Is there more than one potential position?
If the answers to these questions are all positive, then you should apply Cobot to your production floor!
Experiencing iCobots Workspace – We invite you and your project manager to come and experience using our Cobots. We are also ready to allocate engineers time to work with you in our workspace and help you ensure your application is compatible.
Paid pilot on your production floor – When it comes to complex projects, which include Elements that require proof of technology / development, we offer customers a pilot program in which we provide Cobot for a period of about two weeks, in which we, together with the client, implement a similar environment to the environment in which the Cobot will operate on the customer floor. Pilot products are usually a detailed characterization of the additional development required, completion of the job position concept in which the robot will be implemented, and a final project budget.
Training – As part of the implementation process we guide 2-3 operators Or maintenance personnel so that they can operate the Cobot at a basic level and even solve simple glitches. Malfunction recovery – In the event of a malfunction of one arm or one of its components, we will come up with an alternate arm, remove a number of screws, and place the replacement arm in place. When the repaired arm returns, we will contact you for a replacement of the arm, and factories that have purchased over five Cobots will add a spare arm order so they can maintain continuity in the production line, in which case we explain how to do the simple operation.
- An hour-long meeting with the customer and understanding the needs.
- An hour and a half visit to the production floor to select a position and mission
- Receive a written quote from iCobots (if components need to be added to the workspace such as cartridges for units, conveyor, pistons, controllers, etc. we can, of your choice, combine the offer.
- Waiting for your decision on how to proceed…
- If you decide to move forward, a convenient time is set for you to perform the Cobot assimilation project and a time for training on it (usually at the end of assimilation).
Training, service and support
Although not part of the sales process, there is a lot going on for us: We start getting videos of the Cobot as he works in new positions that your team has trained …
About the assimilation followed
Unlike other robots, where each new task, or adjustment, requires a considerable amount of spend on technicians, programmers, and mechanics, in our case part of the process of implementation includes the certification of two employees in operating and teaching the Cobots. If these employees need support in the new application, we would be happy to support them as part of the service package you receive upon purchase. There is usually no additional cost involved in implementing the new task.
There is no need of programming, you show them a movement and they repeat it, then they also logically and accurately link the movement, sometimes in a behavior tree configuration and sometimes in simple code.
Many tasks on the Cobot itself. There’s no problem keeping tasks on a backup computer, so it can be taught a lot more. We have not actually encountered a situation today where the number of tasks was limited.
A little about VGo
As in the Avatar movie, the VGo allows the user to actively present in one place while at all in another place. With the help of an app on your laptop or tablet, the user can connect and control the robot to move around, chat with people, to be seen and to be showed.
In a video call over a phone or laptop, a person on the other side needs to hold the camera and point it. In VGo, the user does not need a person on the other side to hold the camera, and the user has the freedom to move and look where he chooses. Some call VGo “Skype on Wheels,” but the actual behavior of people near the VGo is fundamentally different.
The VGo is used to provide technical support for garage floors and factories, and thousands of units are equipped on a daily basis in school classrooms as well as in a variety of medical departments. The choice of white color is aesthetic, but the device itself is hardened to work in a vibrant human environment. The VGo is resistant to light blows that occur as a result of injury while moving in walls or objects around. The center of gravity of the VGo is very low, which allows stability in situations of sudden braking or object failure.
The perfect remote messaging capability makes VGo common in supporting medical activities, education and training tasks and providing support services. A person who is physically unable to reach a particular site can receive impressive quality messages and guidance in a matter of seconds.
Cobots and Research
Thousands of Cobots are now used by leading academic and R&D institutions around the world, even in Israel the academy is equipped with Cobots for conducting research in a very wide variety of subjects, and for training future generations of mechanical, industrial and electronics engineers.
The groundbreaking interaction with humans makes the Cobots accessible and easy to perform in many fields. All the Cobots have various options for adding sensors, controllers, weights, detectors and more. Some of the Cobots have built-in hand-held cameras (Built in). The Cobot is a first-rate research platform because it helps to skip the many technical obstacles and lets you focus on the most important research questions.
Leading academic institutions such as Tel Aviv University, Technion, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Ariel University, Azrieli College use Cobots to teach mechanical engineering, industrial engineering and research. .
Probably yes. The usual configuration is 1-3 Cobots and 15-30 computer positions with the development environment installed. Upon completion of development on the computer stand, and running a simulation that shows the implementation of the code, the code can be uploaded to the research Cobot and examined the actual implementation.