#4: DOWNTIME AND RECOVERY
Given enough time, any sophisticated system will need troubleshooting, debugging, or fixing at some point. The loss of production caused by this downtime, can detract from ROI and throughput, and often cause intangible drawbacks such as frustrated technicians. It is important not only that the platform itself be easily and quickly serviceable but also have a robust support system in place to help the end-user in times of need.
#5: OPPORTUNITY COST
Because time and resources are finite, there is an opportunity cost for the particular project, whether during deployment or servicing. Making programming and support accessible minimizes this opportunity cost and further improves the ROI of a particular project.
#6: COST OF OWNERSHIP
The cost of training courses (both for programming and maintenance) can easily add up to several days and thousands of dollars per trainee. An intuitively programmable and easily serviceable platform mitigates (or may even eliminate) this ramp-up time, and greatly reduces the total cost of ownership of the system.
HOW CAN YOU REALIZE THESE BENEFITS?
One way to tackle the learning curve is to invest in a system designed to be easily programmed. On some systems, this is done by integrating the teaching interface onto the robot arm, where a programmer can set waypoints by pressing buttons on the panel.
On the Universal Robots platform, ease of programming is a driving idea behind the PolyScope interface. While minimal programming experience always helps in a production application, the time for training on a UR is reduced to 1.5 days on average, with avenues for much more complex applications for those comfortable. The UR+ecosystem provides a certified list of accessories (grippers, vision, software, etc.) that are guaranteed to integrate easily with the robot. Ease of maintenance is also a primary objective, with a maintenance-free operation and joint modules that can be quickly and easily swapped to reduce downtime.
UNIVERSAL ROBOTS MODEL UR5 JOINT REPLACEMENT TUTORIAL