During the last two years in this pandemic situation we have been facing, we had to learn that our supply chain can become very fragile and that parts can go missing which you never thought about before. We saw a price increase in a range which was not foreseeable in our wildest dreams before this crisis. Delivery times went completely through the roof, too.
Sadly, the attack of our European neighbour on February 24 showed us on top of all these problems, that there are also severe man-made threats which are putting additional pressure to the democratic freedom and peace in which we are living, to the lives of many innocent families and as collateral damage also to our global supplier network.
Sustainability is part of the TCO equation
Therefore, one thing became clearer and clearer during the last months: we need to put much more emphasis on sustainability. Robustness and proximity are more important today than saving some money during the purchasing process which at the end will be consumed by transportation costs gone overboard or by the necessity to buy material on the spot market for ridicules high prices in order to keep production running. We urgently need to change our behaviour in order to consume less resources. We also need to find ways to recycle our resources. Sustainability is the new efficiency!
But what does this mean for your robot? How can you make sure to invest into sustainable equipment?
Let’s assume you did all your research, you know exactly which payload you are going to need, and which reach is catering your application. All the pre-requisites are checked and you identified a couple of well-known robot players on the market. Now, you are good to go, right? May the best offering win you may say. Piece of cake. If the specs are same, go for the best price.
Sorry to say, but if you don’t slow down you will fall into the fridge-trap!
What is the – how I like to call it – fridge-trap? Well, let’s have a look at how many of us by a fridge. If you go by specs and price, you might get a good bargain, but you may end up buying the fridge twice compared to the more expensive model which has a lower energy consumption. Same applies to industrial equipment, and – in our case – to robots, but on a much larger scale. So if you have reducing your carbon foot print on your agenda it makes totally sense to have a closer look!
Besides price and specs related to your process, there are also some “soft” facts, which will affect the overall performance of your production during operation and hence your costs. Today we are talking about sustainability and at the end about what new equipment costs you during its full life cycle. These costs are called TCO: Total Costs of Ownership. I promise you: CAPEX is only one part of these costs but not the most important one!
Let’s get right into it: before purchasing a robot, make sure to get some information about the following topics. They are by no means comprehensive, but you will get the idea of TCO and if you are keen on getting more details about the methodology you can have a look here
Energy consumption
Like mentioned above, resources aren’t endless, and studies show that there are significant differences even between two generations of a robot from one supplier. As sustainability is a relatively new topic and as during the last years this topic became high priority, there has been a lot of activities in R&D related to it. So, make sure, cutting down energy consumption is on the agenda of your favorite suppliers as well. By the way: stated max. connection value won’t tell you anything about the real power consumption of your equipment. In order to be sure, you would have to make measurements with the application you are typically running and compare these. The effort for such measurements can be rather high, but if you talk to the vendors, they should be able to show you some data. The quality of this data will give you also a hint regarding the priority of this topic within the organization. Same applies to the sustainability report your partner is providing. Here is a very good example which you can use as benchmark.
Effort for planning and commissioning your equipment
In complex projects, the commissioning costs can exceed CAPEX costs. Sometimes by far. Thus, it is important to know if there are tools available to cut down on commissioning time. For instance, it is important to have a simulation tool which is capable of doing a virtual commissioning (even a virtual FAT) of your equipment as shown in the example.
Technical availability and some fancy KPI like MTBF
There is a huge difference, if your equipment has a technical availability of 95 %, 99 %, 99,9 % or even higher. The lower the number, the faster you can expect some unscheduled down time for a repair intervention. As percentages can be hard to grasp, there is a KPI called MTBR – Mean Time Between Failures. It tells you exactly how long it statistically lasts until you can expect the next unscheduled down time.
Companies which are interested to establish a partnership with you will openly show you such information, as the following example shows.
Reaction time (MTTR)
The Meant Time to Repair tells you how long it takes on average to repair your equipment and bring it back “up”. Remember this is the net repair time, assuming part and technician are already on site. But it gives you a good indication for the effort which must be taken.
Availability of spare parts
If you want to repair something, you are going to need some parts. This is the tricky part nowadays. And this is also the area where you will typically see a huge difference between different suppliers. So, it makes sense to talk about the spare parts strategy as well before making any decision. This topic on its own is already complex. And this topic is also the reason why it makes sense to clearly decide not for a single robot, but for a partner you want to go with when it comes to automating your shop floor.
Availability of trained staff
Do you already have staff with robot experience on site? Is staff with robot experience available in your region? If not: how steep is the learning curve? How complex is your application requirements? Is application and service staff from your partner available for supporting you – at least during the first projects? Don’t underestimate these topics! At the end it’s always about your staff.
Saving Energy and the Environment with Robotic Optimization – Project AREUS (Source: KUKA AG)
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