In an online survey, the German Agricultural Society (DLG) has identified an increasing demand for robot technologies in various sectors.
In the course of increasing automation Robots today from modern food production It's hard to imagine life without them. Will demand continue to rise? Which technologies are mainly used for which tasks? The DLG (Deutsche Landwirtschafts-Gesellschaft - German Agricultural Society) has now published the following answers and outlooks Trendmonitor 2020 „Robots in the food and beverage industry“. This is used by the DLG working group on robotics in food production published.
In total, the current trend monitor received responses from 88 German, Swiss and Austrian companies on which it is based. The analysis shows that robots are used in almost all company sizes today. The only exceptions are very small companies.
Robots are currently used primarily in the dairy industry for use. In the area of beverages; meat, sausage, poultry; baked goods, the responses do not indicate a clear trend towards or away from the use of robots.
High investment costs„, “question of space„ and “robots are not economically interesting at the moment„ are cited as reasons. Main reasons for the lack of robot use mentioned. The answers make it clear that above all for small and medium-sized enterprises, who took part in the majority of the survey, nor Greater need for clarification with regard to the use of robots.
36 companies (78 %) that already use robots stated that they intend to increase the number of robots in the future. Only ten companies (22 %) with robot experience do not want to do this. This clearly shows that robot experience reinforces the trend towards further use of robots.
Articulated robots most common
By far the most frequently used in the companies Articulated robots (articulated arm robots) followed by Gantry robots. The frequency of use can be explained by the range of applications of the two robots. Articulated robots are used as Universal robot due to their large working space and the associated high mobility is the designation. The most commonly used articulated arm robot design has six axes. Area gantry robots are usually for machine loading or palletising used. Gantry robots operate above the machines and only require a small floor area. The gantry can be enlarged relatively easily or several robots can operate in the room at the same time.
What are robots currently used for?
The question was of particular interest, for which tasks the robots are used in different areas (logistics, processing, packaging, other) be used. Compared to the previous DLG trend monitors, the response options here have been significantly expanded, as the variety of robots in food and beverage applications has increased. The most frequently mentioned areas of application are still primarily during the physically demanding work of palletising and for tasks within the scope of of packaging and repackaging. Robots are also frequently used for sorting and order picking. At work, the precision and speed robots are also being used more and more (e.g. pick and place applications). They are also gaining ground for cleaning work and other tasks directly in production/processing or on open products.
The current survey results clearly show that the Growing demand for robot-assisted automation solutions. As small and medium-sized enterprises have the Investment costs too high could Low-cost robots could be a solution here. People with very different professional backgrounds and training are deployed to work on or with the robot. It is therefore necessary that Robots are easy to operate and programme are.
Source: DLG
