THE IMPORTANCE OF FEASIBILITY & PROOF-OF-CONCEPT TESTING FOR AUTOMATION SOLUTIONS

For many manufacturing engineers, the decision to invest in various forms of automation technology (robots, motion control, machine vision, part feeding, robot end-of-arm tooling, conveying systems, vacuum systems, and more) can be daunting. Especially when these decisions involve new or unfamiliar automation technology, involve different automation technologies from multiple vendors that must integrate together, and involve $10,000s of investment. For these engineers, many questions and concerns arise, which include:

Will my automation idea work?
Can the automation project achieve success?
Will there be an acceptable return on investment for my company?
How will this affect the quality and throughput of my process?
How will the labor force interact with the new automation equipment?
Many engineers that had these questions have still went ahead with the automation investment knowing it was the right overall direction for their company. Even though many of these projects may have had success, how much additional time was spent learning how to get the different components to integrate properly? Or even worse, how many companies have put aside expensive automation components after several failed integration attempts? One way to minimize risk and improve your chances of success is to work with an automation partner that can provide proof-of-concept testing with the same or similar components.

Types of Feasibility and Proof-of-Concept testing include:

Conveyor tracking with delta robot
Machine vision systems – camera, optics, and lighting selection
Robotic cycle time testing
Robot and flexible part feeding system integration
Vacuum gripper testing with robotics
Multi-axis motion control tuning and coordination
Collaborative robot with electric gripper integration
And many more
As one might come to realize, there are many different automation technologies and even more combinations of integration. This can be very intimidating and create a challenging problem of selecting the correct automation hardware and solution. This is where the idea of finding a partner to help with feasibility or proof-of-concept testing enters the picture as a solution… Mechatronic Solutions is a high-tech automation distributor that takes feasibility analysis and proof-of-concept testing seriously and has made significant investments to help their customers navigate the integration challenges with the many automation technologies to choose from. Mechatronic Solutions’ training center contains a wide range of automation systems, components and hardware. In addition, this hardware investment is combined with a team of application engineers that are highly trained and experienced with all the automation technologies.