Omron unveils re-designed automation centre

Harnessing Omrons’s 88 years of applied knowledge and experience, the newly updated and expanded facility allows customers to experience all the benefits of a connected, intelligent factory – including reduced waste, increased throughput and greater production flexibility – before making an investment.

By facilitating collaboration at the earliest stage of a project between Omron’s specialist engineers, its supply chain partners and the customer, the automation centre generates a unique pool of intelligence, which can be harnessed to turn preliminary ideas into robust yet simplified automation solutions, says the company. Besides unlocking innovation, this proof-of-concept initiative helps to identify any potential issues during the design phase before they become real-world problems. Helping manufacturers to avoid taking decisions which could stifle innovation or prove unnecessarily costly or time-consuming, the set-up helps to de-risks project investment, reassuring customers that their solution will be fit for purpose from day one.

Antoni Farràs, general manager of the Omron Automation Center Barcelona, comments: “We aim to inspire manufacturers, system integrators and machine builders to adapt their business to meet the changing needs of customers and society. Our goal is to help them realise the possibilities of innovative manufacturing and address current challenges; for example, by creating new solutions to respond to and recover from the global pandemic.”

As well as facilitating the factories of the future, the facility also has a key part to play in inspiring the next generation of jobs. According to one report, 85% of the roles that will exist in 2030 have not yet been invented; by showing the art of the possible and giving organisations the confidence to embrace the latest technological innovations, the centre will ultimately generate new and exciting roles for the workforce of tomorrow, taking employees away from the production line towards more value-added and creative tasks.

Live technology demonstrations

Spanning over 800m² of floor space and located just 20 minutes from Spain’s Barcelona International Airport, the automation centre showcases the full capabilities of Omron’s ‘innovative-Automation!’ concept of integrated, interactive and intelligent solutions. This includes a comprehensive portfolio of control, motion, vision, safety and robotics technologies, as well as full global engineering and servicing capabilities. Able to be conducted on site or virtually, demonstrations include:

• 360° control for flexible production – how all-in-one control comprising robotics, motion, safety, machine vision and AI boosts manufacturing flexibility, enabling scalable and modular autonomous and collaborative production.
• AI sensory inspection – using intelligent AI algorithms to automate tasks previously only possible by humans, thanks to sensing and control technology that flexibly responds to state changes of parts.
• Efficient bin picking – combining 3D vision and collaborative integrated robotics to realise bin picking applications.
• Safe, automated machine care – using collaborative robots to safely automate the supply and removal of parts, without fencing or remodelling of machine tools.
• Human-machine collaboration on a cell production line – robots and humans working together in harmony to enable autonomous process improvement and defect-free production.
• Vibration suppression technology – improving and accelerating high-speed liquid product handling with technology that suppresses multiple resonance frequencies.
• High-speed and high-precision alignment with visual feedback – ensuring optimal operation without machine adjustments despite belt and chain stretching, chuck misalignment and workpiece deformation.

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