Low-cost Automation – changing the traditional view on automation strategies using collaborative applications

Paper in proceeding, 2020

The labor cost has been one of the main reasons for industry to move some of the production to so called low-cost countries. Research has shown that this issue is more complex than just calculate labor cost as main driver. Organization culture, research and development and technical competence is also important drivers for a successful automation strategy. Another important factor when it comes to automation strategies is what production parameters to consider choosing the right automation. Traditionally five parameters have been considered i.e. Volume, batch sizes, variants, investment cost and labor cost. With new and cheaper solutions for automation these two views on automation and lowcost production need to be considered and changed. This paper will describe three demonstrators using low-cost automation solutions to automate simple tasks in final assembly systems. The stations' investment cost is all below 50,000 euro. The first demonstrators have been set up and tested in a lab environment. The results show a high precision, easiness in programming and high quality. The aim is to test this further in real industrial environment to stress the system and to put it into a tougher environment.