Smart factories also contribute to sustainability by offering efficiency, profitability, safety and effectiveness, designing factories with environments that are more beneficial to the health of both customers and their workers. Causing the least impact on the environment thanks to the use of IoT, data analysis, robotics, RPA practices and artificial intelligence/machine learning, etc.
Many manufacturers have proven that being environmentally friendly generates profitability, considering how many outdated industrial processes cause a waste of energy where almost a third of the world’s energy is used for manufacturing processes.
With the improvements in new technologies and robotic automation, so-called smart factories are structured to provide huge environmental benefits by reducing energy consumption through data analysis, which allows energy loads to be adjusted to minimize wasted material during the production process, optimizing cycle times to be shorter while using less energy, and increasing the performance of industrial processes. It also influences space-saving thanks to the designs and the physical, mechanical and hydraulic improvements that make the processes simpler and faster.
Among the industries that have already adopted this environmentally-friendly philosophy are: the automotive industry, the aerospace industry, the agricultural industry and the food and beverage industry.
Among the manufacturers that have joined in to minimize their environmental impact is Fanuc, which is one of the manufacturers of automated solutions whose philosophy is “working in harmony with nature”, which has already set its goals of achieving sustainability. Fanuc designs sustainable manufacturing technologies, improving accuracy, efficiency and sustainability to contribute to the prevention of global warming.
Fanuc’s contribution is focused on several factors, one of which are its engines that provide higher performance and reliability, reducing energy consumption and environmental impact. Engines that handle greater precision and adjustment in the control of acceleration and deceleration by detecting current flows that allow for an energy savings of approximately 30-40%.
Fanuc works in the optimization of manufacturing processes and in training its employees on the environmental impact of the different areas in which they work, minimizing its ecological footprint, structuring strategies to reduce energy consumption and waste, and even promoting the concept of recycling and the minimum consumption of chemical substances.
It designs factories with sustainability and environmental strategies with collaborative robots such as the CR-14iA/L with a six-axis small and medium design that can handle payloads of up to 14 kg, with a kinematics and flexibility that allow it to work near the base for a better use of the workspace, integrated sensors that are highly sensitive to touch, with a security system that guarantees the robot stops at a maximum of 150N or even less, thus generating a low ecological impact.
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