Dennis Beauchesne

Heat Treat Radio host, Doug Glenn, discusses the current state of robotics in the North American (and European) heat treat markets with ECM-USA, Inc. managing director, Dennis Beauchesne. Find out where robotics is currently being used as well as some future applications.

Below, you can watch the video, listen to the podcast by clicking on the audio play button, or read an edited transcript.

The following transcript has been edited for your reading enjoyment.

Doug Glenn (DG):  Dennis, thanks for joining us. It’s been a long time since we’ve talked about finally getting together on Heat Treat Radio to have a conversation about some interesting things. Today, we’re going to talk to Dennis Beauchesne of ECM USA about robotics. Dennis, welcome. I appreciate you joining us.

Dennis Beauchesne (DB):  Well, Doug, thank you very much for having me on. We’ve been talking about it for quite a while and I’m really glad we could finally get our schedules together to make this happen.

DG:  We’re recording just after the holidays. Both of us are sobered up and back to be able to think clearly. We do want to talk about robotics, but just to give the listeners and/or viewers a sense of Dennis Beauchesne, your background, just briefly, tell us where you’ve come from and how long you’ve been working in the North American heat treat market.

DB:  My name is Dennis Beauchesne. I am the general manager of ECM USA which is the U.S. subsidiary of ECM Technologies working out of France. I’ve been with ECM Technologies for almost 21 years. About 10 years before that I also worked with other furnace companies and some in the heat treat business as well as selling alloy baskets, fans, and those kinds of things. I also had a rep organization for 3 years where I sold probes and a number of other heat treat-related items. I’ve had my share of crawling around furnace and heat treats and getting to know the applications, loading mechanisms and all or most of the processes. I’m certainly not an expert on a lot of the heat treat processes, but one, in particular (low pressure vacuum carburizing and especially with gas quenching) is something that I’ve been working with for over 20 years, but certainly hardening and other applications, as well, and vacuum furnaces is our forte.

DG:  Based on conversations you and I have had in the past, we started talking about robotics. It’s almost an element of Industry 4.0 to a certain extent- augmented reality, virtual reality, and things of that sort. Robotics definitely fits into that some, let’s talk about that a little bit.

From your perspective, what is ECM seeing as far as the use of robotics. I’m curious about industry in general, but if you want to narrow it down also and talk a little bit about where are you currently seeing robotics used in heat treat, that would be great.

DB:  Robotics, in general, and automation. Automation has always been a leading technology for ECM USA and ECM Technologies, worldwide. A lot of our vacuum furnaces, as you know, are large scale, high production equipment as well as single chamber systems. But automation usually plays a part in our offering, and that, before, was conveyers, walking beam tables, rolling tables and those kinds of things, where we automated the process so that you would have, obviously, time control over the process, when the parts went to temper, etc.

What we’re seeing more and more, and the reason that I’m here today, is that ECM is very much involved with the robotics handling of parts before and after heat treatment as well. We’ve come across quite a few applications in the industry where these are required. You and I were just at some recent fall meetings, and labor availability is the number one issue in the world today, as we know. I really feel that robotics can do a lot to help in that area. Where we’ve seen robotics work is loading/unloading alloy fixtures, loading/unloading CFC fixtures, taking parts out of bins and putting them in heat treat fixtures, and then you have either operators move them to the furnaces or load them automatically through the automation system (conveyers, walking beams, etc.). We’ve done those systems, especially in Europe, we’ve done a number of systems there.

We are installing a system here, this summer, in North America, and it will be fully robotic-integrated. So, the customer brings us parts that will be in particular totes and we would be loading them into CFC fixtures. The fixtures will be retained in the heat treat area and then the parts will be unloaded after heat treat and then loaded back into their bins, totes, or containers.

This is a fully, completely automated process. It’s not that it’s the same part every time; there are actually 175 different parts. I think that’s a really important piece of information. And they’re not all gears, they’re not all shafts; there is a mixture of a bunch of different parts. It’s a very challenging application but also one that, with today’s technology in robotic vision systems, is a doable situation. We’re looking forward to showing off more of that.

DG:  And that was one of my questions, especially when you mentioned 175 different types of parts. Is the system that you’re speaking about or are the systems that can be made by ECM or others, I assume they are going to use vision recognition, right? They’re not just going to say, “Well, I’m going to take my robotic arm and I’m going to this position where they tell me there is this type of part,” or is that arm actually going to be able to say, “That’s that type of part, therefore I treat it thusly.”

DB:  I would say in this application, if people saw the loading/unloading, they would say, “Well, of course, the part’s going to be in the same location, it’s going to be in the same tote, it’s going to be in the same plastic locking device that it’s going to be every time.” This is true and it is very true in this application.

I think that’s one of the things that’s a challenge in the heat treat business, especially for heat treaters, not the captive operations but even in captive operations, is that parts come in in different forms- they’re in bins, they’re in tins, they’re in bins with plywood covers or plywood covers with cardboard covers, with bubble wrap, and all the things that you see across the marketplace.

As you mentioned, vision is a big, big part of robotics. Actually has some eyes for the robot to know there’s no part there, I’m not going to go get it, I change my program, I go here, or I twist the wrist of the robot a different way to pick up that part, whether it’s flat or round or whatever. Vision plays a big part. The advancements in vision and the robotics are huge, and have been huge, as they have been in vacuum furnace technology, as well, and gas quenching. Those things, moving forward, are a lot of the part of research and development at ECM and ECM USA. Things are moving forward.

DG:  Before we get too deep into what, exactly, these robots are and how they work, I want to question you about the motivation for why people are using them. You mentioned about labor shortage being one of the main reasons. I’m assuming that there are some benefits there. Are these robots replacing people or are they assisting people? What do you see?

DB:  I think it’s across the board for both. You are replacing people but not really replacing people that aren’t present. That’s part of the labor shortage is you don’t have people to replace. That’s part of the situation. We’re really adding to the capability, or the versatility, of that heat treat shop or captive heat treat by adding a robot or adding a person, if you want to look at it that way. But they’re also working together with the people, on the line or in the heat treat, to assist them.

You could have a robot that merely lifts a bin and moves it to another location where you’re helping a person not having to pick up such a heavy load. You also have robots that are placing parts precisely in a fixture or placing parts precisely in a bin, whereas the quality of that part is not impaired: you’re not dropping it or you’re not scratching it along with another part, you’re moving it very carefully like a customer would want to handle that particular part with higher quality.

I think, what was best taken from one of our fall sessions was that one of the presenters, [who] indicated they were using robots, said that in their process they were using this robot to do some of the heat treat and they said that they really no longer can do that heat treat process any more with a human because the robot was so precise at getting them heat correctly on that part for what they were doing. In that way, you are increasing the quality and the value of your heat treat and the robot integration.

DG:  Right. The repeatability is the issue and the real advantage there: precise placement and processing of that item which even the best of us humans can’t do.

Realistically speaking, from ECM’s perspective, can you give us a sense of what the growth in interest in robotics has been? Let’s take a snapshot: 10 years ago, what was it like? What was it like 5 years ago? What is it today? What kind of growth are we seeing? What percentage of your RFPs/RFQs are actually asking for it?

DB:  That’s a great question. I would say that 10 years ago there were very few opportunities or very few discussions about robotics. We would have robotics discussions with, let’s say, large automotive companies that were doing thousands of parts a week or year, and they would, mostly, at that time talk to outside robotics companies and try to integrate robotics into a heat treat market, where a lot of robotics companies would say, “You mean this surface is going to be warped? It’s going to be changed the next time I go to put that same part in that same location?”

I can tell you that it caused a lot of havoc in the heat treat business. Also, with just handling parts in and out of the heat treat load, whether it was a new heat load that was green, or a heat treat load that was already hard — handling those parts differently, especially in a gas quench situation, knowing that they’ve been processed or not — that was also a new development in robotics.

So, 5 years ago, I would say, you started seeing more people where there were several robotic companies that were out there that were starting to say, “Hey, we can handle this.” Vision was coming along a lot faster and there was more presence of vision with the robotics.

Today, I would say in the last 18 months to 2 years, we’ve seen a real uptick in RFPs and RFQs coming in where they’re looking to a company like ECM where we have a lot of experience in automation to further that arm to get robotics involved with not only just processing a load of parts, but taking the parts single piece, building a load and then processing that, and then giving the piece part back to the operations. That’s been increasing quite a bit.

In an effort to take care of that, about 5 years ago we had purchased a company that was doing a lot of robotics internally with their furnace systems in the semiconductor industry. We had a lot of robotic technical expertise in that. If you know that industry, you’re handling a lot of thin parts and a lot of movement, very high volume, and also there is a lot of vision that’s being used in that and also vision in the quality control afterwards, as well.

So, we’re seeing requests for robots loading and unloading. We’re seeing requests for robots picking up parts, putting them in front of the camera, and actually measuring the part for distortion control. We’re also seeing parts that are being automatically hardness tested before they’re put into the finish part bins or totes, or wherever the next stage of processing is.

DG:  I assume, at that point in time, they’re able to separate the sheep from the goats, so to speak. Well hardened, not well hardened, and that type of thing.

DB:  Exactly. There are a lot more automated systems for process quality control, as well, as the parts come out of the furnace.

DG:  Let me ask you this question:  When some people think of robots, we start thinking of the Jetson’s or something like that, but I think most people with their feet on the ground and their head’s not in the clouds too much, when we think of robots, I tend to think of that robotic arm, that type of thing, right? Where it’s a stationary robot, if you will, with functions within its reach. Is this the type of robot we’re talking about now, is that what is most common, or do you anticipate that there’s going to be those, let’s say, “mobile” robots that are roaming around doing things, helping workers, or are they exoskeleton-type robots that are on the backs of people? I’m curious what your prognosticating is on that point.

DB:  A very good question, again. When we look at robotics moving parts around the plant, we usually call those AGVs, or automatic guided vehicles. We’re working on a number of projects with those types of facilities and that reduces a lot of traffic, internally, for people moving forklifts arounds and it becomes a much safer facility.

DG:  And these are not on tracks, right? They’re not on monorails or railroad tracks, it’s just free moving?

DB:  Tracks are a thing of the past, now, with AGVs. There are a number of different ways of doing it. I’m not an AGV specialist, or a robotics specialist for that matter, but they do have AGVs now that are controlled by cameras up in the plant so that the cameras know exactly where the AGV is and is located.

There are also ways of putting tape down or some other line in the concrete where the AGV can follow. Those methods are out there for AGVs. Usually, the AGVs are used in some of the situations we’re into right now. They’re used to promote the accurate takt time through the plant. Whether they need a part every 20 minutes or every 10 minutes, it’s well designed in that fashion. There are usually tracks or pallets that are on these AGVs that move from machining center to heat treat center to post-machining heat treat center. Those things are very much out there. AGVs have, also, grown leaps and bounds, as well, in their own right.

As far as the robot being stationary or, as you spoke about, working together with other operators in a collaborative fashion, both of these methods are being used, of course. But we still see that the larger, single-arm robot, let’s say, can be multifaceted.

In other words, we can have 3 or 4 handling devices or grippers, as we would say, on the end of this robot. It could be picking up a part, then picking up a tray, then picking up a full load, with the same gripper or same handset that’s on the gripper. These are multifaceted robots. You’re not really looking at every time you need to pick up a different part you need to have a different tool. That’s what’s being done with those, as well as trying to reduce the footprint and making a much safer robot system with the collaborative design where, if you touch it, it stops. In addition, robot programming, also, has become far less tedious, let’s say, or far less required from a specific person to do the programming.

"In other words, we can have 3 or 4 handling devices or grippers, as we would say, on the end of this robot. It could be picking up a part, then picking up a tray, then picking up a full load, with the same gripper or same handset that’s on the gripper. These are multifaceted robots."

DG:  And you mentioned the word I wanted to ask you about which is probably the hot topic, and we’ll have to make sure the lawyers get involved here. What about safety? It’s not just the mobile AGVs, I think you said, that are afraid of running somebody over or hitting somebody, but it’s also these stationary ones that have moving parts. Are there any safety concerns? What can you tell us about the safety and the advances in safety?

DB:  Well, of course, safety is always a very, very important part. We’re trying to eliminate workers by not having to pick these parts, but we still need to be safe in that environment. There are a number of ways. A lot of people are trying to get away from the full cages with light curtains and those kinds of things. Using the collaborative robots, where they’re touch-sensitive and can be shut off instantaneously, are probably the best way to go. With the AGVs running through the plant, there are a number of sensor systems on those AGVs that would stop them, as well as they move at a very slow pace, as well, throughout the plant.

There are a number of safety devices depending on the installation. Whether it’s a stand-alone system or it’s something working collaboratively with a person, safety is always important and can be working, l would say, much more advantageous these days with other workers.

DG:  In one sense, there are people who resist robotics because they may be afraid of it replacing people or hurting people and things of that sort, but in a sense, the whole advantage here is that ultimately it is better for the human worker to have these machines doing it. Typically, the robotics are taking away some of the redundant, tedious work. Would you agree with that?

DB:  I agree and that’s typically what we discuss with the customers. It’s where in your plan do you have difficulty hiring people to work? I would say 90% of those customers answer: I can’t hire anybody for a long period of time when they’re taking the part from a bin and putting it in a fixture or taking a part out of the fixture and replacing it in the bin properly. They say that those people last a few months, and they move on. The worst case is if you have someone that’s been there a long time and you put them in that position, it’s a negative for them. They finally feel like, “okay, they’ve got something on me and I have to go down and build loads.”

Like you said, people are thinking about robots and they’re a little bit hesitant, but I would say that, and maybe you’ll get to this question but, it’s more the possibilities and the way people think about robots. I would have to say the most that I’ve heard, especially from heat treaters, is, “Well, it’s not going to do what I need it to do.” “I can’t use a robot because I don’t have that many of the same part every year.” Really, that is changing. What we’re planning on doing is having a demo site here, hopefully before the end of this year, where we could have certain bins of parts and show how, with vision, we can pick up different parts and put them in heat treat loads and move them around.

DG:  Let’s go there because that actually was a question I wanted to ask: To a certain extent, we’re limited in our willingness to use robotics because we’re probably limited in our understanding of what they can do. I’m quite sure, as much as ECM has dedicated resources to developing current capabilities, there are some dreamers in your group that say, “You know, we could get robots to this if only someone would say ‘okay’.” Can you share with us maybe some of the things that you are currently doing that are a little "cutting edge" or at least useful to our captive heat treaters? And also, some of those things that could be done? I’m curious as to the extent of where we might be able to go in the next 10 years.

DB:  I am, even myself, learning as we go along, as well, of the technologies that are out there. What I’m impressed with robotics is they not only help once they’re installed, but before the concept is even put together. I’ve put on VR glasses and walked through a heat treat and you can understand exactly what the robot’s function is, what it sees, where it goes. We can actually also walk through a furnace installation and see what the height of everything is, what the level of everything is, how it moves around. Those are some of the applications even before you get the robot installed.

The other possibilities that people do think that “Oh, this is going to be expensive, first of all." They think it’s not going to work on my parts in my situation. There will be some concessions that everybody is going to need to make. For instance, the heat treat fixtures, maybe the ones that are really warped, you’re going to have to not use those as much anymore. Or, you may have to a more standard basket or a more standard fixture for all the parts. You may not get your million parts in one load (like everybody wants to get), but you would get them done more efficiently and faster.

Some of the applications we’ve done where we’ve taken very thin ceramic material and put it on setters and put them in some brazing furnaces and sintering furnaces, and then move the loads around, unstack the load, stack the load, restack the load, and done that all completely in a robotic cell, without touching the parts, ever. And then, as the parts come out, they’re electrically tested to make sure they’re good.

Like I said, in this other application or several other applications, we’ve also done bulk filling of CFC fixtures. You would have a CFC fixture that needed to be bulk loaded with small pieces, we actually have them go through a vibrating machine, fill the CFC fixture to a certain level, the robot comes over and puts a screen on top, moves the CFC fixture onto a heat treat load and does that continuously.

DG:  Is that done by weight or by vision?

DB:  Both. Because you can have the weight, but you may not have it even.

DG:  Right, the distribution -- it would vibrate it out until it’s acceptable and then the screen would come in.

DB:  Exactly. And, like I said, the possibilities of heat treat robotics is what it’s coming down to. Heat treat robotics, today, is to educate and have everybody understand that it is and could be capable of taking flat parts out of bins and putting them in fixtures properly and removing them and doing the reverse action. We need to educate people that these things are available out there. And it doesn’t have to be any particular type of furnace or any particular type of size of load of the furnace, it is a matter of setting up a station, maybe a loading/unloading station that you might have an area in your plant, to do the robotic handling of it, with our expertise in heat treating, understanding the facets of what happens to the parts and the fixtures during the heat treat process.

Those are the kinds of things that we see. Like I said, right from the design of the system and the layout, understanding how everything is going to work on a VR standpoint, all the way to implementation in a facility that takes in many different parts on a daily basis and processes them. I think that’s true to form in what’s moving forward in robotics today.

DG:  I want to throw this one at you and see what your input is on this:  Let’s think about robotics for the whole way through a process. I want to think, just for a minute, about a mesh belt furnace, let’s say. I know you guys do a lot in vacuum and things of that sort, but it could be the same type of thing.

Could we use, on the frontend, robotics to do, not only placement of the product, but product inspection, let’s say, making sure it’s a clean surface (with nitriding, for example), making sure impurities are off and things of that sort? I assume we could us robotics on that end to inspect the product, making sure it’s good to go in the basket, then we put it in the basket or in the fixture, goes through the furnace, comes out the other end, is picked up and inspected at that time for whether it be hardness or distortion or whatever, and then placed on where it needs to go. I assume all that’s possible, correct?

DB:  You assume and yes, it is possible. I, personally, haven’t seen anybody install that particular system, but I would love to be part of it. We have designed a system and quoted on a system that was using a mesh belt where the customer of the heat treat department felt that the parts (these were coin-shaped type parts) and it felt better that the parts were processed better vertically rather than just in a pile on the belt.

So, these parts were put in small fixtures on the belt (and this fixture was maybe 6" x 6" and took up a 4'-wide belt) and those were loaded in place very properly and then also on the outside on the outlet of the furnace belt were also unloaded. Then, of course, the design was for them to inspect them by coloration and then also by hardness. And I didn’t share that with you before this meeting, but that was one application that we quoted on and it’s something that is very doable.

DG:  A couple final questions for you: We talked earlier about the companies who, for example, if they high diversity of product and not high quantity of those products, I assume, and you’ve mentioned it, that robotics probably is not as likely to be helpful to them as to a company who has low variability of products but high volume of those products. Do you have any comments on that? For example, a commercial heat treater who does all kinds of crazy things and doesn’t have a lot of any one thing, is it safe to say robotics probably would not be as useful to them?

DB: I would have to say that that is the thought that we’re trying to change. We’re trying to change that thought because I’ve sat at a number of tables during the lunches and dinners at some of these presentations and that’s exactly what I hear from the heat treaters: “Robotics isn’t for me; I don’t do enough of the same part.” In reality, a lot of these robotics systems now are easily programmable by grabbing the gripper and moving it to where you want it to go. And if you have repeatable parts (maybe you don’t have a hundred million of these parts in the same month, but maybe you have ten thousand of them over 12 months) once that’s programmed in the robot, then you have that program for the next time. There may be some initial programming time that you have to apply to it. We don’t see that that is a big downside because the vision system will understand what the part looks like before the robot picks it up. The programming has become much easier and simpler for everybody so that you don’t have to have a big staff just to take care of the robots.

I think that’s the other misnomer that companies have is that if I get a robot, I not only have to pay for the robot, but I must have the five support-staff for that robot, when, in fact, that is not something that’s becoming a thing. In one of the cases, the same person that was talking about the quality of the robot was also talking about the excitement of his team to work with the robot and to be able to learn to program that robot, and that being their job rather than loading and unloading the fixtures. To them, that was more exciting and made them come to work, wanting to come to work every day, and was also a lead-in for them to hire more people, to say, “Hey, we’re implementing robotics in the plant and as an opportunity to work in that department eventually or eventually we’ll bring robotics into your department.” There are those incentives, as well, with some of the employees.

DG:  You may have hinted at this before: You’re saying that programming of the robots, sometimes, can be as easy as showing it what to do by moving it, saying, “Here’s what you do: Grab this, put this here, grab this, put this here." That’s as easy as it can be?

DB:  It’s becoming that way, yes. I’m not a programmer, but I’ve seen a lot of demos, as a lot of other people have, but yes, those things are possible. Get it in a general location and then you tweak it a little bit here and there- yes, those things are much easier to do.

DG:  Probably, to say to those who are "robotic doubters," let’s say, it would be good to not assume it’s as difficult as what you might think and to keep an open mind.

Let me ask you this:  You could be a commercial heat treater, but most of our audience or a lot of our audience are the manufacturers with their own in-house heat treat or what we call captive heat treaters. What questions should they be asking themselves about robotics, whether or not it makes sense for them? Is there a list of questions they ought to be asking or considering before they even consider robotics?

DB:  I think that when you’re doing repetitive operations in your facilities, whether it’s captive or heat treat shop, that’s where you get the most benefit from a robotic system, obviously. That’s one thing. The other one is: Are you doing similar operations in that repetitiveness? Are you always building the same type of fixture? Are you always building it for the same furnace load? Those things.

"The more similarities you can get that robot to work with, the more cost effective it becomes. But there are also a lot of benefits to having that robot be very versatile in working with a number of different size furnace loads as well as part dimensions."

The more similarities you can get that robot to work with, the more cost effective it becomes. But there are also a lot of benefits to having that robot be very versatile in working with a number of different size furnace loads as well as part dimensions. I can’t say that there’s a specific set of questions, but certainly would love to work with any customer that has even a thought that maybe they should look into this.

DG:  I think the high repeatability is critical. I would imagine, Dennis, that if they’re dealing with high-value parts, even if there’s not a huge number of them, and they’re looking to eliminate the potential for human error, even if it’s simply in the placement of that product or if they’re looking for single-part traceability, perhaps, robotic systems, definitely, it seems to me, would be also something that would be of interest.

DB:  Absolutely. In-process defects is something that it would be very good at eliminating. Also, as you said, if you were looking for traceability, I can tell you that we can build a robot system that can trace, even if you have 500 parts in a heat treat load, it can tell you exactly where that part came from in the load, where you put it in the load, where it came from and where it went after it came off of the heat treat rack.

Traceability is a good point that I didn’t bring up, thank you for that, Doug. Traceability is really important, as well- we can do that with the furnaces. And that’s for a single-piece part flow whereas a lot of people are going to that method. A single piece gets to the heat treat furnace, not a bin of parts. Then, you can trace every part through the heat treat load and back out of it.

DG:  The other thought I was having while you were talking was, and this may be only in a number of very minor cases, but a lot of times there are situations where a part has got to come out of a hot furnace, it’s got to cool off in order to be moved to the next process — it seems to me with any type of automation, robotics included, you could eliminate the amount of heat loss between furnace one and temper furnace or the next process.

DB:  I think another application is operating press quenches where you’re moving a hot part over the end of a furnace and moving it over to a quench, it’s an extremely hot part that you don’t want to touch. Obviously, there are gantry systems for that and there are a number of robot systems that can be installed to get those people out of those hazardous jobs. Also, in terms of quality because timing is very important, as well.

DG:  You mentioned about maintenance of these systems a little bit, or at least the programming of them. I’m assuming maintenance is somewhat of an issue. If there are moving parts and things of that sort, there is probably going to be some maintenance on it, whether it be hardware maintenance and/or software maintenance. Any comments on the amount of money or time that a person would spend maintaining these systems as opposed to maintaining a human being doing those systems?

DB:  That’s a very good question, again, and it should be something that’s part of your machine maintenance. It is a machine tool; it is going to need some maintenance, so it’s part of your maintenance requirements. If people use this same maintenance priority that they do for the heat treat furnaces, thank goodness robots work really well, as well, in hazardous environments. I would say that they hold up very well. Robots have been around a number of years and they’re very industrialized. Maintenance is not as critical as it used to be, but it is, obviously, still required.

DG:  And I’m sure they can handle the environments, too. Hopefully, the environments in the heat treat shops are getting better and not so smokey and oily and that type of thing. I’m assuming that any robots you put in would be able to handle whatever environment it’s in.

DB:  That would be part of the requirements, as well.

DG:  Any concluding thoughts? Anything I’ve missed that you want to hit on, Dennis?

DB:  When you think, “Robotics isn’t for me,” spend a little time and look into it. I’ve been blown away with the technology of today. Look at our cellphones — they aren’t even phones anymore. We use them for many, many more things than just a phone. Robotics have come to be that way, as well. There are so many more things that can be used in conjunction with the robotics to help you get your job done and service your customer appropriately and with good quality parts.

DG:  I’ve got one other question I just thought of: I perceive that a lot of times companies in Europe are a bit ahead of us on technology or at least the adoption of some of these technologies. With ECM, the mothership of which being in France, are you seeing that there is a wider acceptance of robotics from companies in Europe than here in the States?

DB:  I wouldn’t call it acceptance, but there are many more applications and customers looking into it in Europe than there are here, yes. I think that, maybe, we haven’t realized that the people aren’t there we’re not going to find them. Then, I think in Europe, where they realized, even just a few years ago, that they’re just not going to find these people and they need to automate. Or the operators that they can find are not going to get the job done the way they need it to get it done because technology has grown so fast with the quality of the parts necessary, especially with EV products today, dropping a part or having a part nicked by something, or even continuous productivity is important.

So, yes, we’ve seen more in Europe, and that’s another reason we’ve been on the leading edge of this technology and now bringing it to the U.S. in North America in a more simpler fashion with the same people having this inexperience as over in Europe.

DG:  Being somewhat facetious, the other things robots give you that humans don’t is they don’t have to pass drug tests. I’m pretty sure that the robots are okay.

DB:  They don’t have to pass drug tests and they don’t have to get COVID tests either!

DG:  And they don’t miss many days of work!

For more information, contact:

ECM-USA.com

DB@ECM-USA.com (Dennis' email)

336-210-5316 (Dennis' cell)

Doug Glenn
Publisher
Heat Treat Today

To find other Heat Treat Radio episodes, go to www.heattreattoday.com/radio .

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See ECM-USA's listing on Heat Treat Buyers Guide.com