Speaker 0 00:00:00 Current trends towards more flexible and effectors and end of arm tooling, give industrial robots a helping hand.
Speaker 1 00:00:09 Hello everyone, and welcome to the robot industry podcast. My name is Jim Beretta and I am your host, and I'm really pleased to have cost us Charlotte MBOs here from Zimmer group and cost us. And I go back a little ways. We've actually gone on a big trip together to Germany, uh, for a kind of a technical one. And, um, I'll tell you a little bit about cost us cost us is currently the technical sales manager at Zimmer group U S Inc, which is based in Hickory, North Carolina. He has almost 25 years experience in the automation industry, mostly working with grippers and other end of arm tooling during that time cost us welcome to the podcast. Hi Jim. Hey, can you tell us, tell the listeners a little bit about Zimmer group? Yup,
Speaker 0 00:00:52 No problem. Uh, so Zimmer group us is a subsidiary of Zimmer group GmbH, uh, they're based in rhino, Germany. We were founded over 40 years ago and we're one of the global industrial, uh, leaders in handling technology, particularly grippers and benefactors, uh, linear clamping and breaking products, as well as industrial damping components like shock absorbers,
Speaker 1 00:01:14 And like kind of question. Uh, and thank you for coming on up. What is happening in end of arm tools from your perspective, are you seeing any kind of short, medium or long-term trends? Yeah,
Speaker 0 00:01:26 Sure. Um, in the short-term, uh, we're seeing small to mid-sized businesses and more accessible applications, uh, which are beginning to emerge as robots become cheaper and easier to use. So a simple to use grippers and end effectors often, uh, electrically driven ones, uh, are typical for cobots, uh, in the mid to long-term. Uh, the trend we're seeing for end of arm tooling, uh, is trending towards full industry industry 4.0 connectivity. Uh, and honestly throughout it all ongoing is the search for the holy grail of multi-purpose grippers or, uh, end effector systems, uh, that have the flexibility and versatility, uh, for warehousing with the wide variety of work piece sizes and weights.
Speaker 1 00:02:13 That's really interesting. It's, you know, it, it, we're recording this at the, hopefully at the end of a pandemic. And so how has COVID-19 affected automation companies from your perspective? Are you working differently?
Speaker 0 00:02:25 Oh, definitely. I mean, over the past year and a half, we've seen a paradigm shift in the way business is being done. Uh, not just in an hour world, but the entire globe. Uh, we've had a shift from in-person meetings, obviously with customers and colleagues, uh, shifting over to getting together via Microsoft teams, uh, zoom and other video conference platforms, uh, trade shows have obviously had to have gone virtual for awhile, although that does seem to be reversing hopefully soon. Um, you've also seen what I'd like to call webinar burnout, uh, where, yeah, where it seems like every other day somebody was hosting a webinar and it became really a chore to carve out the time to tune in. Um, so as far as end of arm tooling trends that were affected, honestly at the outset of the pandemic, there was a scramble to find or modify existing and effectors quickly for testing equipment or to aid in, um, PPE personal protection equipment, uh, manufacturing, and then as vaccines were developed, of course, uh, to aid in production, as well as packaging of the product we saw and the factors and end of arm tooling being developed towards that.
Speaker 1 00:03:39 Yeah, it's kind of been an interesting part. We, we all have been very busy. Uh, I've been busy putting webinars on and podcasts, so I know I'm part of that. I'm, I'm guilty as charged, but it is interesting to see how, uh, end of arm tools, uh, have kind of evolved during the pandemic and how we've been rushing to get products to market because we're trying to solve this pandemic. So end of arm tools in general trends, you're seeing smaller, bigger and smarter. Did you want to, um, expand on that before?
Speaker 0 00:04:11 Yeah, sure. Um, in general, uh, we're definitely seeing a trend towards smarter and effectors, uh, with the built-in connectivity to the cloud, uh, and, uh, capability of helping with predictive maintenance through say in hand measurement of parts, uh, or the ability to have very light touch for delicate parts in one instance, but then still being able to generate enough force for heavier parts all in one end effector. So we are really seeing something, um, towards the smarter side of, uh, end effectors, not necessarily smaller or larger, that's always application dependent, but definitely smarter.
Speaker 1 00:04:50 And what industries are keeping you busy. I was kind of assumed that automotive is about 50% of what's keeping robots busy. So it should be about the same end effectors. Is that true?
Speaker 0 00:04:59 Definitely, um, industries that have been keeping us busy lately have been automotive, particularly IE mobility and battery technology. Um, also packaging industry, uh, medical testing devices, as I mentioned earlier and pharmaceutical packaging. Um, of course, uh, you know, the last two have definitely spiked during the pandemic.
Speaker 1 00:05:22 And so when we talk a little bit about complex end of arm tools, cause I remember when you and I are visiting the factories, uh, we saw a lot of complex end of arm tool. So is it getting complex or easy?
Speaker 0 00:05:36 Well, I, I was talking with, uh, my colleague Russ Tyler about, about this just recently. And, uh, he says that, uh, end of arm tooling is trending towards more complex because we're trying to do more with the same tooling to take over tasks, uh, that were previously human based. Um, when I, I asked him if, uh, say dirtier environments would call for simpler end effectors, uh, with, uh, end of arm tooling that had less moving parts. Uh, his reply was no. Look, really look at some of the custom sand core and Foundry end effectors that we make. They're very complex with lots of moving parts, but you just really need to understand the environment that they're operating in and design and protect the end of end of arm tooling appropriately.
Speaker 1 00:06:24 So, um, do you think end effectors end are getting more expensive or are we getting, because now we electrified a lot of these units. Are we getting some economies of scale?
Speaker 0 00:06:36 Uh, yeah, for sure. I mean, um, really, uh, we're seeing a lot of, um, stuff filtering over to collaborative robots. Uh, most of our, uh, newer end effectors that are coming out are electric, uh, driven. Um, they're, they're both smarter or simpler. We have both styles. Uh, we are seeing that in, in the entire industry. Uh, the trend towards electric grippers, um, is, is moving at a rapid pace, uh, whether it's a complex servo driven gripper that is programmable force and stroke and, and, and, uh, can recognize parts and has forced feedback to very simple grippers that mimic the operation of a pneumatic gripper. Uh, but they're electric really driven and they just require a simple signal to open and close. We're seeing that throughout and our, our product range in Zimmer is doing the same as well. It's, it's expanding just like the rest of the industry is towards a more electric and let's be honest, pneumatic pneumatic pressure is inefficient to, to create, so the trend towards going to directly, um, electrically driven grippers is really a, a big,
Speaker 1 00:07:47 Yeah, and it's an interesting part and we've watched the robot industry grow up, right? We're in the good old days, you'd make your own grippers, but now you've got so many choices. You've got so much, um, uh, so many, uh, interesting companies and technologies that you can deal with. It's almost, uh, it's almost hard to match who it is.
Speaker 0 00:08:04 It really is. Um, I mean there's, if, if you don't know where to start, you, you know, obviously you're, you're jumping on to, you know, to Google, to, to take a look and see what's out there, but, um, generally the big players are out there, you know, hopefully Zimmer is one of the, uh, one of the choices that you look for. Um, you know, the collaborative robot scene has, has really spurred a lot of, uh, differentiation as well as to, uh, companies that are front runners, um, for the end effector scene. Um, you know, it's no longer, uh, the industrial, uh, giants like shrunk and Zimmer, and <inaudible>, uh, you've got, you've got competitors in there, like robo teak and on robot and the, uh, the, the others who make the flexible grippers. Um, so, uh, there, there's a lot of differentiation out there and it's a completely, it's not, no longer a completely new market segment, but, uh, it's an emerging market segment that really has a lot of clout nowadays.
Speaker 1 00:09:06 And yes, and Zimmer was one of the first as well to come out with, uh, these electric and smart grippers. So, uh, one of the things I wanted to ask you about that is I've been hearing a lot about a system called match, and I wanted to have you maybe explain to the audience, what does match mean? And what's it aimed at? Yeah,
Speaker 0 00:09:24 Sure. Yeah. You mentioned that that Zimmer, uh, was one of the first, yet we were one of the first companies to, to create a fully safety rated, um, gripper for cobots. Um, and over the years we we've expanded our offerings for cobots, um, and match system, uh, is basically rounding everything out. Now it's a, it's an ecosystem for end of arm tooling, and we feel that it's also one of the best product offerings out there. Um, it's, as I mentioned, it's an ecosystem of end of arm tooling. It's designed to allow the user to have flexibility to rapidly change and of arm tooling on their robot to shoot the application at hand, um, match was developed as a collaboration between Zimmer group and the, uh, uh, renowned vacuum technology leaders, schmaltz, um, it centers around it unique, but simple mechanical tool changer system that can be used both manually by the user or automatically by the robot.
Speaker 0 00:10:24 Uh, both Zimmer group and schmaltz have designed to end effectors, uh, around this versatile tool changer Zimmer, initially plans to have nearly 24 different varieties of grippers from long stroke programmable to very simple, uh, open-close electric grippers to fully safety rated collaborative style grippers as well. And schmaltz hub designed to end effectors around, um, their electric vacuum pump models. They have two different electric vacuum pump models and a wide variety of vacuum cup configurations as well. So since all of the, uh, end of arm tools in match system are electrically driven. We mentioned before pneumatics systems are inefficient since these are electrically driven, no pneumatic supplies required. And in many cases, the wiring for all of these end of arm tools can be run through the robot arm instead of externally as well. Uh, additionally, the match products are designed, uh, which are designed for say universal robot E-Series robots, uh, are, um, are equipped with a handy free drive button as well, which allows you to trigger the teaching mode of the robot and move it around without needing to keep your finger pressed on the teach pendant button.
Speaker 0 00:11:44 So it frees up a hand to allow you to position the robot. Uh, all of the match system and effectors are controlled via what we call our comfort apps, uh, which is basically an applet that's installed on the robot teach controller. Uh, to date, we have support for you R E series, uh, also fanic CRX collaborative robots do sand M series hand-wash robots, as well as Mitsubishi, a sista, and, uh, generally any robot that has an ISO 50 millimeter Mount, uh, can, uh, also accept the match system on it. Um, all of the match system end effectors are basically robotic Gnostic, meaning that it doesn't matter to them what robot is attached to as long as, uh, as long as, uh, you can, um, as long as you have a male or a master side on your robot, you can basically move a, uh, match system gripper tool changer combo from let's say a U R and walk over to your fanic CRX that already has a match system master side on it and connect it and be up and running in minutes. Um, another particularly interesting use case for match is when you combine it with a, an AGV in order autonomous, uh, uh, robotic vehicle. Um, so if you combine it with a match with, with an AGV and a match equipped cobalt, uh, you basically now have an autonomous robot that can automatically pull up to a station, recognize the task and work piece, and then outfit itself with the correct match end of arm tool for the job, from a tool rack that it carries around. It's basically the ultimate and flexibility.
Speaker 1 00:13:27 And that's very exciting to hear that to big companies, uh, like smolts and Zimmer get together and, and actually push the industry ahead by, but because they're kind of, you're not exact competitors, but it's kind of this co-op petition model, right?
Speaker 0 00:13:44 Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's, um, we, we compete sometimes as far as end of end of arm tooling. Uh, they really don't have grippers. Um, and we have a very small offering as far as, uh, vacuum cups, but they, they knew where to go as far as tool changing, uh, technology to basically create this collaboration. Um, so what we intend for match is to build it out to maybe other manufacturers of end of arm tooling, maybe somebody who's got a, um, uh, a more unconventional gripper that doesn't have a tool changer on it. Uh, we can offer, uh, a match system compatible tool changer so that they can basically couple quickly and easily to any match equipped, uh, robot. So it's, it's think of it as the apple app store ecosystem. And we're trying to create a, a, basically a, I want to say a white, it's not really a walled garden right now, but, uh, it's, it's, it's, it's a new brand, uh, that we're, we're really hoping sticks. Uh, and the customer recognizes the flexibility, the future flexibility, not necessarily a customer who only has one application right now, but a customer who foresees the future of expanding to multiple applications and something that they'll need more end of arm tooling, different end of arm tooling in the future.
Speaker 1 00:15:10 Uh, thank you, costless. Um, so do you feel kind of the future of end effectors? Are they just going to get even smarter than they are now?
Speaker 0 00:15:20 Uh, definitely. Uh, I mean, we're really driving towards a time where we have end effectors that are flexible enough to handle mass production of single part piece runs. Uh, in other words, uh, uh, different, uh, tooling, that's versatile enough to be able to reconfigure itself rapidly to handle a different part every cycle. And that's really where we're driving at right now. We're almost at that point.
Speaker 1 00:15:46 Yeah, it's a very exciting time to be in the end of arm tool market. And I suggest to a lot of my clients that the end of arm tool market is almost bigger than the robot market, because a lot of times you need multiple end of arm tools for multiple robots over the life of the robot. Of course,
Speaker 0 00:16:00 Definitely. Definitely. And that's, I mean, you, you have entire, uh, entire market segments of, of quick change tool changers. You have, obviously you have, you have Zimmer group, but you have ATI and, um, and, and a few other companies who make quick changes and that's made of the necessity of requiring different end of arm tools for the same application, uh, with one robot, of course, as robots become less expensive, you may be able to fit more robots into the same workspace, but we've seen that robots take up a lot of, a lot of footprint. So having one robot with multiple tools that it can switch off on is usually the ideal, uh, form factor.
Speaker 1 00:16:41 Thank you for that cost us. Is there anything that we haven't covered today in our conversation that you'd like to address?
Speaker 0 00:16:47 Uh, not necessarily. I think we've covered most of, uh, end of arm tooling trends are right now.
Speaker 1 00:16:53 Um, so I do have a question for you, if you, uh, just for kind of, for fun, any hobbies that you have right now, when you're not talking about end effectors are in robot plants or, uh, uh, in factories.
Speaker 0 00:17:06 Yeah. Actually, and my wife would, uh, would, would hate it because I keep on, uh, uh, making everybody a little too fat here in the house. But, uh, I, uh, I enjoy barbecuing and smoking. I just got a brand new, a brand new smoker for my, for my birthday, uh, an upgrade from my previous smoker. And, um, just about every, every week I'm spending hours upon hours making delicious, uh, delicious, hopefully delicious meals, uh,
Speaker 1 00:17:34 Well, and that's very cool. And of course, I see that you enjoy baseball too, cause I, I follow you on Instagram. Um, so I do have final question. How can people get ahold of you?
Speaker 0 00:17:44 Yeah. If you want to, if you want to get ahold of me and, uh, and uh, just chatter discuss the match system, you can reach me on LinkedIn. Um, my, uh, my, the spelling of my name is Costas, C O S T a S Cheryl and C H a R a L a M B O U S a. And I'm probably the only cost is Cherrelle and Boosie on LinkedIn right now. I would hope, uh, sorry for the other guy. Uh, you can, uh, you can also reach me at our, at our company phone number (828) 855-9722. Um, or you can email me it's cost us. It is C O S T a
[email protected].
Speaker 1 00:18:28 Thank you, Costas. Our sponsor for this episode is Earhart automation systems, Earhart builds and commissions turnkey solutions for their worldwide clients. With over 80 years of precision manufacturing, they understand the complex world of robotics, automated manufacturing, and project management, delivering world-class custom automation on time and on budget contact. One of their sales engineers to see what Earhart can build for you. And Earhart is spelled E H R H a R D T. And I'd like to thank our partner 83, the association for advancing automation. They're the leading trade association in the world for robotics, vision and imaging motion control and motors, and the artificial industrial intelligence technologies visit automate.org tore and more. And I'd like to thank our partner painted robot painted robot builds and integrates digital solutions. They're a web development firm that offers SEO and digital social marketing and can set up and connect CRM and other ERP tools to unify marketing sales and operations. And they're painted robot.com. And if you'd like to get in touch with us at the robot industry podcast, you can find me Jim Beretta on LinkedIn. We'll see you next time. Thanks for listening. Be safe out there. Today's podcast was produced by customer traction, industrial marketing, and I'd like to thank my nephew, Chris grey for the music, Chris Colvin for audio production, my partner, Janet, and our partners, a three painted robot and our sponsor Earhart automation systems.
