Metropolia University of Applied Sciences’ Big-Flash project develops companies’ competitiveness and vitality by promoting the adoption of emerging technologies. The project offers companies the opportunity to try out new technological solutions in practical experiments. As part of the project, an investigation was made as to whether a cobot would be suitable for a packaging function of HUB logistics’ Hakkila logistics center.
The goal of the Big-Flash project is to increase cooperation between companies and educational institutions. It connects companies that need to develop their operations with the help of modern technology, and an educational institution that provides a resource for the necessary investigation work.
From HUB logistics, development director Anssi Tura was responsible for the project. According to him, participating in the project supports HUB’s strategy, one of the focus areas of which is digitalization and technologies.
– Our goal is to actively search for new solutions and technologies and to develop our operations. With the help of the project, we were able to find out whether the cobot would be suitable for the packaging function selected for review in our logistics center in Vantaa, Hakkila.
According to Metropolia University of Applied Sciences’ project coordinator Daniel Korhonen, projects will be implemented in stages.
– In the Big-Flash project, we aim to implement projects for companies in three different phases. In the first phase, we take the company’s development target and start brainstorming sessions to find possible solutions. Our project had experience in collaborative robotics projects, so ideas were born from the very first meeting. However, the goal is for the projects to be student-oriented and for the students to learn to work in a business project environment while receiving support from the school and the project’s resources.
Would a cobot be suitable for packaging?
Cobots, or collaborative robots, are often used in logistics to perform monotonous tasks such as picking and sorting from the line and for assembly procedures. In terms of modularity, the cobot is a current and modern choice.
– When using cobots, the only limit is your imagination. They can be used for numerous easy tasks such as assembly tasks, transfer tasks from one line to another or, for example, packaging, which we were reviewing. Compared to traditional robots, cobots are lighter. They can be moved from one workstation to another, so they can perform many different tasks during the day. It is essential that the raw materials and components are easily available for the cobot, says Anssi Tura.
In the testing, the packaging process was divided into different work phases and a solution was sought for the automation of a partial process. According to Korhonen, the project used the University of Applied Sciences’ collaboration robots and utilized the University of Applied Sciences’ resources to develop concepts.
– The two-handed YuMi cobot was seen as the best option in this project. We set out to find out how it would be suitable for packaging work. Our final year student took concept construction as the topic of his thesis and used ABB’s two-handed YuMi cobot as a help.
According to Tura, the essential thing in the testing was to find out if the cobot can perform the different packaging steps or if they are too complicated for the cobot.
– Cobots are used to make work more efficient. They can perform routine and repetitive tasks, freeing human resources for other tasks. One goal of the project and testing was also to find out how much the cobot would save the employee’s time and whether the employee’s workload can be reduced sufficiently by transferring work tasks to the cobot.
Valuable information about cobot testing for further development
According to the report, the cobot was not suitable for the task under review, but the project as a whole was useful and provided information for future mapping.
Daniel Korhonen is satisfied with the cobot testing done with HUB.
– As the end result of the project, we offered a comprehensive view of how to approach the purchase of a collaboration robot and made a survey of Finnish collaboration robot integrators. We created a concept for how the YuMi cobot performs the first stages of packaging work, and we found out what kind of time-saving savings it is possible to get with the cobot purchase.
HUB logistics’ development director Anssi Tura sees potential in cobots in the future:
– The project was very useful for us. Although the cobot was not suitable for the work task being tested, it does not mean that cobots could not be seen in Hakkila’s logistics center or some other location in the future. When purchasing cobots, one must be careful and evaluate their suitability and profitability. Based on this report, we can better think about development targets and the technologies used, sums up Anssi Tura.
Further information:
HUB logistics Finland Oy
Anssi Tura, Development Director
anssi.tura@hub.fi
+358 050 313 4286
Metropolia ammattikorkeakoulu
Daniel Korhonen, Project Co-ordinator
daniel.korhonen@metropolia.fi
050 592 1713
Metropolia ammattikorkeakoulu
Tiina Vuorijärvi, Project Manager – Big-Flash
tiina.vuorijarvi@metropolia.fi
040 751 1322
Read more about Big Flash project (in Finnish)
