Cobots vs Traditional Robots: Which Boosts Productivity?

• event_available 30-06-2025

All across the manufacturing facilities and warehouses, the conflict for production, versatility and quality are not only fought between people as in the olden days, but with Robots including collaborative which are called Cobots. The most common question asked by senior management is : Which kind of Robot could offer us the best productivity and profitability?

Well, the answer depends on many factors like the speed, flexibility, security and the ownership cost. If you understand the basic difference between Robots and Cobots and in which application each of them are utilised, it would be easy to make a decision as to where each of them will provide benefit.

Is it Traditional Robots that still rules the industry?

When it comes to raw performance and functionalities, traditional robots win the game. They offer without fail:

• Enhanced productivity
• Increases safety at workplace
• Lessens cost of labor
• Uniformity and precision
• Scalability and Versatility

Where productivity is of major importance and at the same time if human accuracy is less, conventional robots perform an exceptional job.

Versatility & Set-Up Time

Cobots come with exceptional strength that offer amazing versatility.

Quick redisposition: It's possible to train a cobot in less than an hour with the help of a drag and drop software as well as hand guide methods.

Compact: Cobots come without having any huge cages. They can be easily integrated into existing machines thereby helping to save a considerable amount of floor space.

Multi-tasking A cobot is capable of performing inspection in the morning, upon lunch screw driving and later in the night packaging thereby being able to perform a wide range of tasks in a single day. When it comes to high mix and less range of production - medical devices, electronics as well as job shops the swiftness is often seen to outweigh the cycle time. Researchers have found that making use of cobots will reduce the transition downtime by almost 90%.

Collaboration of Humans & Robots

Any unplanned downtime can lead to destruction of productivity. Conventional robots require light curtains as well as guarded cells and any breach in safety can lead to a critical stop which will stop production and be sent for maintenance. Cobots on the other hand are designed in such a way that it is capable of working shoulder to shoulder with human operators and therefore helps in reducing such sudden stoppages.

• Force-and-torque threshold that eliminates any impacts that are harmful.
• Monitor speed and separationthat will slow down the arm automatically when operators approach.
• Tactile hand-guidingmakes it possible for the operators to reposition the robots without having to open the cages or damaging interlocks.

Cost

It has been found that conventional robots cost less than Cobots. But there are some additional costs incurred to it :

• Installation of safety fence which will add up to 30 percent of the total cost of the project
• Integration of PLC, guarding system and assessment of risk
• Requirement of special programs as an when a change request is raised

Cobots come with in-built safety features and interfaces that can be used without any complexity. This feature helps in a drastic reduction of your company’s budget by 50%. The cost of operation which includes the single phase power 220V in which Cobots usually work on, the maintenance cost and the training for the operator till return on investment is attained. In the case of small and medium sized businesses, the ROI duration can be 6-18 months and it can be 24-36 months in the case of heavy batteries.

Hybrid Cell

Shrewd businesses do not choose either one of the cobot type, instead they prefer to go with hybrid cells where the cobot is capable of handling inspection, any hand-off tasks or track side renewal whereas a conventional robot can be seen to perform heavy lifting tasks. The advantages include:

• Continuous flow. Cobots can feed parts to the robot that is swift thereby preventing starvation or overload
• Shared fixtures. The single vision system can lead both bots, lessening the cost of tooling.
• investment.Begin with one cobot, as and when the volume increases, you can keep adding industrial arms

RISAG is capable of increasingly delivering the dual robot architectures, coupling etc. Clients were able to achieve a productivity of 45% more with the use of cobots.

Conclusion

As per the points discussed above, we understand that the conventional robots are focussed on speed, are very dangerous and take heavy payload. On the other hand, Cobots are very flexible, interact with the human operator and can work effortlessly in environments where there are space constraints. The hybrid varieties are seen to deliver the most profit making use of both characteristics. Are you looking for an efficient cobot for your business? With no doubt, RISAG Robotics would be your trusted partner for it in the Middle East region with their reputed brand robots and cobots and unparalleled service we offer.