By Paula Owen, director, GS-MR robotics.

Range Rover, BMW, Mercedes – popular vehicles built by robots in an industry that turned to automation 40 plus years ago to remain in profitable business.

It’s 2018. An IGU manufacturer makes the strategic decision to automate manual loading on a trusted IG line with a robotic solution that loads verified glass on its edge. It’s a world first.

Immediate reductions in waste are achieved, safety and consistency of production quality improves, employees are upskilled and begin to choose the system over manual loading.  Zero maintenance issues and a full return on investment is achieved.

The strategy works, so a further trusted IG line is automated. Another resounding success.

A further decision is now taken by the IGU manufacturer to automate the manual loading of two of its new automated IG lines which, despite their industry leading automated status and capital investment, still rely on a 50 plus year old manual loading process as standard.

Fast forward five years – how much benefit has the initial strategic approach now afforded?

The answer to that question is, a whole lot more than the IGU manufacturer who fails to address this historical problem production area. Instead, continuing to rely on the same 50 plus year old process that, aside from safety implications, loads unverified glass leading to misloads, production interruptions, inconsistent quality and waste.

The UK manufacturing industry constantly discusses the challenges it faces and how these challenges can be addressed. The glass industry is no exception.

First and foremost, the glass industry needs to finally accept the time for serious change is now.

Acceptance that, in a modern world the manual loading process is no longer fit for purpose as it no longer meets the demand for consistency of production, quality, or safety.

Acceptance that, as truly incredible as the glass industry is, the days of operators happily manually loading glass for minimum wage are over. Anyone who considers this is a career choice, being happy for their kids or significant other to do this for a living, please feel free to email me on [email protected] and we can openly discuss this point.

Acceptance that, better management of this production area is the key to improving IG line quality and, whilst images of full cullet bags returned for recycling are an honest representation that we are embracing recycling, future generations will thank us for now taking control of avoidable waste.

Rework is waste. Waste is recycled. It’s only a rework because for whatever reason we didn’t get it right first time.

Kaizen, 5S, TQM, choose your method to review the reworks issue – the results will demonstrate it is as a direct result of manual handling and safety.

There are automation solutions to address this challenging area of IG production; all have a solution specific return on investment and depend on how much CapEx and space is available.

Where replacing an existing IG line for an updated specification with manual loading would incur a longer investment return, taking control of and automating manual loading achieves a defined return based around how proactive your automated solution is.

Automatically verifying glass prior to loading on its edge, thereby not even touching special coatings has more than proved its relevance.

Automated or not – why load unverified glass onto an IG line only for it to be manually removed if it’s wrong?

Serious industry change should not automatically equate to consolidation. Consolidation without proactively addressing avoidable waste is not a long-term solution.

GS-MR Robotics grasped the automation nettle in 2018. Aside from NIC, the industry position now is much the same as the position in 2018. The key to longevity is addressing historical problem production areas with sustainable, meaningful, reliable automation, releasing glass operators (and engineers) to do something else.