Techman Robot Successfully Enters the Supply Chain of Major European and Japanese Car Manufacturers

Compared to other industries, the level of automation in the automotive industry is much higher. Collaborative robots that can be flexibly applied to a small-volume large-variety production line, focus on human-robot collaboration and facilitate smart manufacturing are emerging. The latest report of Kenneth Research predicts that the shipment and sales revenue brought by collaborative robots in the automotive industry will increase by 43% every year by 2022.

The well-known Japanese car manufacturer adopts Techman Robot to process the final quality check of all detailed assembly inspections. Techman Robot helped the customer to install the “next-generation smart inspection system” utilizing a customized stand including‍ four Techman collaborative robots. Besides the built-in smart vision, 36 external front and rear cameras were also installed. Moreover, each collaborative robot is equipped with three types of lenses, including short, middle and long. The Japanese car manufacturer mentioned that among their global production lines, this is the only one using the automated optical inspection (AOI) system and AI smart inspection solution. The ceiling-mounted arm can move inside/outside the car elastically to execute all of the quality-checking items.

Since the quality inspection focus on components and items on a very detailed level, standard robotic vision might not be enough to point out all of the defects. That’s where TM AI+, Techman Robot’s own developed AI function, comes in handy. Massive sample pictures of the goods are gathered, and fed into TM AI+ training server to generate a deep-learning model which is capable of identifying all of the defects or incorrect components. The model will be imported into the robot arms and combined with robot vision to perform quality checking on items such as checking the color of the logo, the plastic film of the wheel, the type of the dashboard, or even the texture of the seats.

The leading Japanese car manufacturer commented that TMflow, the innovative and user-friendly interface of Techman Robot, allows the well-trained insider to quickly program based on different car types or demands without asking the system integrator to come to the factory, and thus achieves a significant reduction of time, manpower and cost. Meanwhile, the built-in smart vision allows the customer to record all inspection data more efficiently to improve quality and implement data archiving and traceability which cannot be realized by manual inspection.

Since 2018, Techman Robot has become an officially approved supplier of “Continental,” another world-famous manufacturer in the automotive industry, and started to improve the automated process in its signature factory located in Budapest, Hungary. This factory mainly produces telematics control units (TCU) for car manufacturers. Techman Robot not only optimized the pick and place application but also enabled the customer to save the cost of installing a third-party camera with built-in smart vision. Moreover, the customer could also swiftly copy the program to different stations through “TM Landmark” to significantly reduce the time of training a collaborative robot to recognize the position and object. The “Plug and Play” gripper can run tests quickly to reflect the project’s performance in time. Techman robot, with the built-in smart vision, is the best choice to meet the smart manufacturing demand of highly flexible production in the automotive industry.

Join Techman Robot to obtain more information: https://www.tm-robot.com/en/register/

 

Techman Robot Signs G-START MOU with Four Partners to Promote Green Intelligent Technology

The National Productivity Organization of India Productivity Council (NPC) and ROC- China Productivity Center(CPC) Taiwan join hand in hand to invite bilateral industry leaders to sign the 2020 MOU “Green- Strategic Technology Advocacy for Resilient Tomorrow (G-START).” Together with India NITCON Limited, and CPC, Taiwan Environmental Manufacturers Association (TEMA), Advantech Co., Ltd, and Techman Robot Inc., plan to scale up collaborative activities and create more business opportunities for Taiwan’s green industries.

G-START will build upon mutual goals to explore new ways to harness capabilities and encourage new business models by facilitating technical engineering services, training, demonstration projects, and expertise exchange. The scope of strategic technologies partnership will target areas in wastewater treatment, air pollution control, eco-plastics, energy efficiency, and AIoT smart manufacturing solutions to enable more opportunities for sustainable innovation.

Techman Robot’s COO, Scott Huang, said that: The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the business environment for many organizations around the globe and makes it a chance for restructuring global industrial chains. We believe India and Southeast Asia play a crucial role under the pandemic. TM Robot with built-in vision system enables fast and flexible production line reconfiguration, to meet the market’s demand for low-volume and high variety production. It can also help to lower integration and equipment costs, reduced time and human effort needed. We believe that G-START will coordinate the resources with Taiwan and India to bring in more opportunities.

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Techman Robot Establishes a New Training Center in Southern Taiwan

Affected by the coronavirus pandemic and the global economic situation, the industrial supply chain has been reorganized, and the return of manufacturers has emerged. In response to the demand for new and expanded production capacity, Techman Robot announces its cooperation with its distributor, Juyao Automation, to establish a flagship training center in Southern Taiwan to service end customers and automation manufacturers in that area.

Techman Robot, a pioneer of collaborative robots and intelligent vision systems, trains at least 1,000 engineers each year from the automation industry locally and abroad. The surge in automation demand in the past two years has driven robotic training courses, and Techman Robot has finished around 2,500 training courses in total. This year, they will expand the establishment of Techman Robot’s southern training center to serve the semiconductor and panel industries. This provides new training options and immediate service for manufacturers in the Central Science Park and expects to meet a monthly automation training count of 80 customers.

Techman Robot has chosen Juyao Automation to jointly establish the Automation Training Center since they have more than ten years of experience in factory automation. Juyao Automation also assists customers to plan factory integration of precision machinery systems. With their vast experience in automation courses, they will help serve Techman Robot’s customers in central Taiwan and southern regions.

Facing the arrival of Industry 4.0, the innovation of automation software and hardware for manufacturing is quickly arising. The cultivation of automation talents is also in urgent need. How talents use smart manufacturing to maximize benefits is also an important key to leading the successful transformation of the automation industry.

Techman Robot Plays a Crucial Role in Industry Transformation and Smart Upgrades

The International Data Corporation (IDC) has predicted a new era in Global Digital Transformation (GDX). As a leading collaborative robot and smart vision manufacturer, we – at Techman Robot – have brought with us a series of solutions for smart manufacturing upgrades to the Taipei International Industrial Automation Exhibition. We provide TM AI+ – which is a highly efficient automated defect detector, TM Palletizing Operator – an intelligent palletizing system that integrates both software and hardware, and TMmanager – which uses data to drive digital transformation in many industries by smartly managing factory data. Teaming up with Formosa Television (FTV), a cross-border collaboration with TM Robot, to demonstrate augmented reality (AR) technology using a broadcast-graded camera.

TM AI+ Solution

Manufacturing is one of the sectors that have the most potential in Taiwan and is best suited for high-efficiency automatic quality detection. Techman Robot has successfully developed TM AI+ by using the advantages of built-in vision – an integration of traditional machine and advanced AI vision in a single robotic system. Without the need for additional controllers, the manpower, time, and money required in past integrations have been considerably reduced. The built-in vision system of TM Robot integrates with light industrial cameras and sensing elements to capture images. The deep learning technology of AI is also combined to accurately identify the shape, type, and color of an object as a means to further enhance inspection efficiency and accuracy, and solve the difficulties of automated production in different industries. The inspection data can also be used as guidelines in future manufacturing – a step closer to digital transformation.

TMmanager is your Best Partner for Smart Factory Management

Techman Robot has always striven to assist different sectors in achieving automated production for smart factories through virtual integration, IoT, intelligent equipment, and robotic applications to build a smart factory that is highly applicable and functional. The capabilities of our smart factory management software, TMmanager, are as follows:

  1. The data collection and monitoring system provides customers with real-time factory equipment management and monitoring their status
  2. Control over the manufacturing site provides full traceability and automated gathering of all manufacturing data
  3. A user-friendly interface allows easy data processing and can be customized as required
  4. Real-time production status allows the operator to grasp first-hand production information
AR Collaboration with FTV

The innovative collaboration demo with FTV combines TM Robot with AR camera alignment technology. TM Robot can instantly feedback the displacement coordinates of the end camera to the virtual camera in the AR scene, and simultaneously synthesize AR 3D to achieve the effect of virtual reality with the precisions of TV broadcast standard. When equipped with a camera, in addition to the tracking and alignment tracking system of the virtual studio camera presented at this exhibition, it can also be used with automated camera and drones, as well as special effect photography, such as high-speed or time-lapse footages.

News broadcasted on FTV channel also uses this new technology to help produce and broadcast programs with TM Robot. In its 2020 Election Prediction Program, the interaction between the anchor and virtual objects allowed news data and election charts to be presented to viewers in a more advanced way. In comparison with professional robotic camera arms, TM Robot is much smaller and easier to operate. They allow for a safer work environment and are also more affordable. We believe TM Robot provides a promising future for a wide range of cross-border integration such as TV news, studio automation, ads shooting, and more!

The new TM Academic

Techman Robot is dedicated to industry-academia collaboration opportunities, thus we established TM Academic. TM Academic is a professional education group that covers all training services, comprehensive robotic courses, and classroom design for automation classes from secondary to higher education. Currently, we are planning to provide collaborative robot license and internship opportunities for those who successfully graduate from TM Academic courses, to further enforce the integration of industry and education, so that the talents can be put to good use and enhance future competitiveness. So far, we have collaborated with over 30 universities and colleges in Taiwan and overseas, such as the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, National Taiwan Normal University, National Cheng Kung University, National Central University, and National Chung Hsing University. In the future, we will continue to strengthen our commitment to improve robotics education in Taiwan and also expand our dedication to education institutions globally.

Given that global digital transformation is an unstoppable trend, with a series of new solutions ranging from traditional industries to warehousing, electronics manufacturing, and even into film and education, Techman Robot continues to innovative robotics technology and smart manufacturing across all industries, we hope to soon achieve the goal of building highly-intelligence and automated businesses of the future!

Professional Development at Techman Robot Targets Smart Manufacturing Opportunities

Smart manufacturing is a hot topic in the industrial sector. Many countries now believe that smart robots will play an increasingly central role in future technological development. However, during the production process, potential hazards still exist between mechanical equipment and humans. Techman Robot commissioned TÜV Rheinland to conduct advanced internal training for its specialist personnel to strengthen the safety of human-machine interactions, as well as support the intelligent manufacturing and automation capabilities of its overseas customers. The first class of 10 trainees recently received their qualification certificates. This certification provides proof of risk management ability and professional expertise in robotics. Individual certificates can also be checked through the Certipedia certification system maintained by TÜV Rheinland.

Risk identification and assessment must be conducted during the design process of industrial robots to avoid work safety problems. Operating hazards must be reduced through design or preventive measures. The design of the robot itself should also provide a certain level of safety. If the safety risks cannot be effectively reduced through design, then more measures must be incorporated. Industrial robots and systems fall within the scope of the EU Machinery Directive (2006/42/EC), they must adhere to the harmonized standards for industrial robotics that includes the standards for industrial robots and robotic systems (EN ISO 10218-1, EN ISO 10218-2), plus a supplementary collaborative robot technical specifications (ISO/TS 15066). The electrical equipment in robots and systems must also comply with the international standards for electrical equipment used in industrial machines (EN/IEC 60204-1) and the relevant regulations of the Electromagnetic Compatibility Directive (2014/30/EU).

TÜV Rheinland provides Techman Robot with a compacted course on improving safety practices and review skills. The training course covers the application of mechanical and electrical safety standards, risk assessment of potential hazards, configuration, and selection of protective devices, the layout of robot automated production lines, design of human-machine collaborative tasks, as well as maintenance and management requirements. Technical trainees that pass the qualification exam will receive a mechanical safety certification issued by TÜV Rheinland, which certifies that they are capable of drafting CE Technical Construction Files (TCF), identifying mechanical risks and hazards, planning safety and protective measures, and writing EN ISO 12100 risk assessments. On top of that, qualified personnel can also provide their corporate clients with production line planning and risk assessment report. These qualifications can not only help increase trust and professionalism but also reduce the possible risks caused by the customer’s automation equipment.

Techman Robot was founded in 2016 and is a global pioneer in collaborative robots and smart vision systems. It is the only collaborative robot manufacturer based in Taiwan and has been catapulted into second place among all collaborative robot brands in the world. More than a hundred distributors located in China, Europe, Japan, South Korea, and Southeast Asia now supply collaborative robots with built-in vision, software, and application solutions. Techman Robot hopes to break down human-machine barriers through innovative robotics technology. By exploiting the respective strengths and advantages of both humans and robots, a closer collaborative relationship can be built for a future of seamless collaboration between man and robot.

The market may still reserve its attention on the functions and applications of intelligent robots, but it is the “safety of people” that takes precedence over anything else. This is critical to prevent robotic harm to humans. TÜV Rheinland leverages the technical perspectives of different industries by analyzing the potential risks in a product itself. The relevant international standards are then used as a reference to incorporate active and passive safety technologies into the robot design so that robots can accomplish tasks set by humans while ensuring the safety of both.

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