Bringing robots into the round economic system

There isn’t any doubt that the world is dealing with a number of environmental crises – from air pollution to extreme waste of power and assets to too many merchandise merely dumped and discarded on the finish of their lives. Losing power and supplies after which producing or extracting extra to make much more merchandise isn’t solely unsustainable, it drains the world’s capability to provide extra assets and soak up the waste we produce.

Clearly, we’d like a way more round economic system -one that makes use of waste and discarded merchandise and supplies as a invaluable useful resource, permitting us to chop down on the quantity of virgin materials we have to extract, course of and transport.

That is the message of the Circularity Hole Report 2023 – with a world round economic system, we might meet everybody’s wants utilizing solely 70% of the supplies we at the moment extract and use. Presently, the supplies which might be recycled again into the economic system on the finish of their lives account for less than 7.2% of all materials inputs into the economic system. This small proportion has solely decreased through the years. To discover a resolution, the authors of the report have recognized 4 areas the place motion may be taken to enhance circularity. Certainly one of these is ‘Manufactured items and consumables,’ and a serious ambition inside that is to increase the lifetime of apparatus, equipment, and items.

Robots play a job in chopping waste

With their capability to hold out exact actions repeatedly and persistently, robots play a serious position in decreasing wasted supplies. Because of this, we’ve seen an explosion in robotic gross sales, with the most recent report from the Worldwide Federation of Robots (IFR) figuring out 2021 as a report 12 months, with an all-time excessive of over 500,000 new industrial robots being put in in factories around the globe.

This progress is encouraging for robotic producers like ABB and utilizing robots undoubtedly brings nice advantages to customers – however what occurs on the finish of a robotic’s operational life? Producers like ABB are always discovering methods to cut back their ecological footprint and disposing of robots responsibly is a key part of a round economic system.

To assist obtain this, ABB presents companies that make sure that its robots play their half in fixing the world’s sustainability challenges. This six-step strategy not solely helps firms to help the round economic system, but it surely additionally brings financial advantages.

Designed to final

ABB’s drive to make sure the long-term sustainability of its robots begins on the design stage. Designed with high quality and longevity in thoughts, some ABB robots have been in use for greater than 35 years. Swedish engineering agency Magnussons, for instance, obtained its first ABB robotic in 1974. After 42 years of fixed operation, this robotic solely stopped working when the corporate closed its manufacturing website in 2016.

Prolonged lifetimes

ABB presents a number of options that reach the lifetime of robots, resembling data-driven companies that allow customers to take actions that may maximise the lifetime of their robots. These companies embrace, Preventive Upkeep, Situation -based upkeep (CBM) and Linked Companies.

The CBM service permits clients to know that are probably the most burdened robots.

The primary stage considers your entire robotic fleet, throughout which probably the most closely used robots are recognized. On the second stage, these robots are checked intimately, with ABB consultants conducting additional evaluation to search out the causes of the overload and advocate a tailored upkeep technique.

With this service, a robotic’s life may be prolonged, contributing to the round economic system, by decreasing the upkeep wanted.

In business, this service helped a serious automotive producer to determine probably the most burdened robots in its facility, producing preventive upkeep actions that may assist 280 robots proceed to work till 2035, regardless of already accumulating 25,000 manufacturing hours.

Giving robots a second life

Because the saying goes, all good issues come to an finish, and the identical applies to robots. As soon as a robotic has reached the tip of its operational life, ABB presents a remanufacturing, buy-back service that sees merchandise and parts re-used or re-cycled. Sometimes, 60 to 80% of a robotic may be reused, whereas the remainder is distributed to licensed recycling companions. For instance, practically all ABB robots used within the automotive business get a second life, with as much as a fifth even getting a 3rd.

ABB’s six remanufacturing centres, throughout Asia, Europe and the USA, take again round 250 robots per 12 months, giving them a second life with new or the identical clients.

With elevated lead instances as a consequence of provide chain disruption, largely a results of the worldwide pandemic, 2022 noticed a rise of greater than 25% within the demand for refurbished robots and ABB expects the demand to extend additional nonetheless as producers search for extra sustainable options.

Over the past 25 years, hundreds of robots have been refurbished and upgraded by ABB’s remanufactured robotic groups. Along with beforehand owned robots, peripheral tools resembling controllers and manipulators are refurbished to an “as-new” situation.

Earlier than being labelled as an ABB-certified remanufactured robotic, each second-hand unit undergoes rigorous checks, together with an in depth inspection and a minimal 16-hour useful take a look at. Every remanufactured robotic comes with a two-year guarantee and may also be upgraded to function with the most recent controller.

When shopping for refurbished tools, customers get pleasure from the identical stage of help from native service groups, together with set up and coaching, as they might when buying a brand new ABB robotic.

Shopping for refurbished robots can reduce 75% of the CO2 emitted throughout manufacturing, in comparison with buying new robots. For instance, disposing of an ABB IRB 6640 as scrap would waste 1.4 tons of fabric, primarily steel, which takes a number of power and thus emissions to get better and reprocess.

Constructing a round economic system with robots

Because the world wakes as much as environmental issues, extra robotic customers are embracing the round economic system. In serving to to maximise the helpful lifetime of its robots – reusing them and disposing of them responsibly on the finish of their life – ABB helps robotic operators discover options to a extra sustainable manner of working.

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