General Motors has embraced smart manufacturing through its Zero Down Time robot program in partnership with Japan’s Fanuc three years ago. Today, the robots only continue to multiply.
Dan Grieshaber, GM’s director of global manufacturing integration, told Automotive News in a Monday report that the program now includes 13,000 robots across GM’s 54 global manufacturing plants. The robots upload their data to Fanuc where the results are measured against GM’s performance expectations.
From there, GM can troubleshoot maintenance issues and other quirks before they become serious.
“There are directions that come back to our maintenance departments that tell us what we need to go look at, proactively, in advance of a robot breaking down and impacting our production,” Grieshaber said.
But smart manufacturing has grown to include more than just assembly robots. GM has begun providing its robo glove to workers to help prevent fatigue for workers that use repetitive motion. The sensors, actuators and tendons—comparable to the nerves, muscles and tendons in a human hand—increase dexterity for the worker.
GM also uses collaborative robots or “cobots” that can operate around the human workforce without a safety cage.
In the future, Grieshaber said there won’t be a silver bullet to solve all of manufacturing’s issues, but instead a wide combination of solutions. And we’ll likely see more robots to help.
Comments
before GM sold cars to their employees but how do they sell cars to robots ??
GM doesn’t live or die on the balance of selling their products to the people who made their cars. That is circular reasoning and doesn’t even make sense.
Besides, there has always been a larger demand for GM’s products from people who DON’T work for GM. This group of people is called ‘the general public’, and I think you’ll find the demand of the general public has always been larger than the demand of the employee base.
It’s also the same way for every other automaker on Earth.
Was this a concern of yours back when GM first introduced robotic assembly in 1961? I think you’re making a mountain out of a molehill.
how does the UAW get the robots to pay dues ?? every car sale is a profit maker for GM
Not.
Gm sucz
No I hate you
Sebastian go suck a d***