In part 2 of this series, we will review the need for the disintegrator model and do a deeper dive into what distinguishes the disintegrator from the traditional integrator.  We'll review automation ease-of-use, versatility needs, and the rise of flexible automation cells followed by a glimpse at how BlueBay Automation is positioning itself to provide premier solutions to our customers.

These new products have allowed a new hybrid model of integration to emerge in the industrial automation market. The ease of use of the collaborative robot has brought an entirely new wave of smaller industrial end-users to the forefront of the robotic transformation of their workforce.  The end user now sees the value of these robots as a “swiss army knife”.   They understand that the new name of the game in automation is versatility. 

The smaller end user sees the value of automation as a tool that can be developed for a particular process and then redeveloped, or repurposed, with a simple tool change and program recipe change. The beauty of this approach to automation is getting outside of the limited scope of a custom integrated machine that can only be utilized for one specific purpose.  There is also the risk of this product becoming obsolete, resulting in a scrapped machine that is useless. The flexible automation cell is often half the cost while also maintaining versatility as a re-deployable asset to be repurposed in future applications. However, this often does come at the expense of machine throughput and cycle time.

One might ask if this disintegration methodology is a threat to traditional integration.  We believe it is quite the contrary and that traditional integration is here to stay.   A custom machine, which requires extremely high throughput (i.e. Cycle time faster than 40 parts per minute), will always need to be a uniquely custom machine and traditional integration will be required.   Traditional integration focuses on projects which generally fall above the $250K price point, and will require extensive engineering development to streamline the application.  Make no mistake, many solutions require this approach and cannot be implemented without extensive customization.

With Flexible Automation being anchored by collaborative and semi-collaborative robots, BlueBay Automation has aligned itself with the country’s premier collaborative robotics company.  We are pleased to announce that as of November, we are officially a Universal Robots Certified Systems Integrator. We look forward to continuing to implement the best automation products in the flexible automation space and providing solutions which are at the forefront of the technological wave.