To succeed in a world of mass customization, e-commerce, direct-to-consumer and omnichannel strategies, you need machinery that's built to adapt. Today's consumers expect to get the products they want, when they want them – personalized to their individual tastes and preferences. To meet this challenge, progressive machine builders are delivering machinery that adapts to the products being made and packaged, rather than forcing products to conform to a rigidly sequential process.
This is adaptive manufacturing
B&R enables adaptive manufacturing through track-based and planar product transport systems integrated with robotics, machine vision, and digital twins and controlled with our core automation platform.
What are the challenges faced by end-user manufacturers?
Changeover on the fly
Independently controlled shuttles allow the adaptive machine to change product format on-the-fly with no lost productivity. Changeovers are pushbutton fast and fully automated, with no tools, change parts or human intervention.
A production line can even be readily reconfigured to run new products, thanks to a modular design and the use of a digital twin to simulate the new operations.
Ready for unforeseen products
Flexible track layouts, load-balanced parallel processing, full-speed merging, and dividing of product flow, perfectly synchronized robots: The adaptive machine handles higher volumes of shorter runs with greater product variability.
There's no need for queuing or buffers, for an even smaller footprint. Digital twin optimizes configuration upfront and allows easy adaptation to future requirements.
High performance over a smaller footprint
With the adaptive machine, there's no compromise between flexibility and performance. Tight synchronization of independently controlled shuttles leads to higher throughput and greater productivity.
Replace rigidly timed sequential processes with dynamic, responsive solutions – and discover new dimensions of efficiency and productivity.
Profitable personalization
The adaptive machine supports digital business strategies with the ability to deliver cost-effective, automated, make-to-order mass customization for the first time ever. Manufacturers can now offer personalized, even batch-size-one order fulfillment directly from the production line to the consumer.
Contact our Adaptive Manufacturing specialist today!
Email us at: adaptive@br-automation.com
