Last weekend I visited a local Volkswagen dealer. I learned that they don’t accept any orders for hybrid cars and that you will have to wait like a year and a half for their ID full electric cars. While this sounds like last century, it is the effect of a global shortage of chips and some looney dictator bringing war to a country counting for 7 % of the global harness deliveries into automotive OEMs.
So, delivery times go up. Not only in the consumer world, but also if you are doing business. Same time prices raise, sometimes to the sky – which we not only can observe at the gas station. Better learn to deal with it as this situation seems to stay.
But how can you deal with such a situation especially when you have projects for which you placed orders and delivery times change from week to week and not for the better? Your customer starts getting nervous, she/he wants to see action plans outlining how you keep your deadlines.
Simulation is the key to cut down commissioning time
There is hope, though. Believe it or not, there is a fair chance that you can make use of prolonging delivery times. You already can start commissioning your project and minimize real-life commissioning with the help of simulation. The best thing about it? You can start this process just now, by using tools like KUKA.Sim.
Why you should start simulating your robot cells
There are many good reasons why you should start simulating your whole shopfloor. If you manage to bring it to such a level that the virtual line you created behaves exactly as the real line on your shop floor, you have reached the next level. You have then created a virtual twin.
Increase your security in level 1
The first step of simulation puts you into the position to avoid major errors during the planning phase of your robot. You will be able to determine the reach needed for your cell and the exact location of your robot in your cell. Also, you will be able to check if you have any interference (aka collision) later, for example if you plan to enter a machine tool and you must optimize the design of the gripper to do so. Believe me: it’s always a lot cheaper to detect such error in the virtual world than later during commissioning!
Later you also have the issue that pressure literally increases once the hardware arrives, and it turns out it is everything but flawless. I remember very well when I was a young project engineer who was called by the colleagues from the shopfloor, and they showed me how stupid my design was because I obviously missed the fact that my supplier mirrored it in the drawing. That was probably a 20 kEUR+ gripper who was supposed to handle 6/8-cylinder engine blocks in a truck line. Sleepless nights until I managed to fix it!
Cut down your commissioning time in level2
In the planning phase you designed your cell and checked for collisions. You also created your paths, and you determined the cycle time. Next level is programming. A good simulation tool creates already code out of the paths you generated. But there is also options available to design your process, for example with add-ons for arc welding in KUKA.Sim.
Mastering Safe Operation can be painful, but a simulation tool also allows you to create your safety rooms and your safe tools and already lets you check in your virtual cell if rooms are going to be corrupted.
Level 3: Everyone Loves Twins
In the moment you are working with safe operation, you are going to need a Safe PLC, and even without safe operation chances are high you have to use one, depending on the complexity of your cell. There is the possibility to use behavior simulators like Simit or WinMOD which allows you to simulate the behavior of the complete cell with all additional sensors and the I/Os you created for communication between robot controller and PLC.
If (lead)time is running, you need to take the shortcut through the underground and use simulation tools right now. This way you will effectively reduce the commissioning time on your shopfloor to a minimum.
At the end of this post let me take the time to say Thank You for following my blog over the last couple of months. Lately I discussed with one of my readers that he often can’t invest the time to read my posts in their full length as they are rather long. So, I was thinking to create the longer version as vlog or podcast. Let me know in the comments below which format you prefer and what’s your experience with simulating your shopfloor or your cells.