Manufacturing robots: Go straight to business needs

In the small room at the Experimental Workshop, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering - Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, PGS, Dr. Le Hoai Quoc are working with colleagues to design and manufacture robots according to the order requirements of businesses. This is part of a robot manufacturing program initiated by Ho Chi Minh City Department of Science and Technology.

Here, PGS - Dr. Le Hoai Quoc is working with colleagues to design and manufacture robots according to the order requirements of businesses. These are robots like automatic plastic pickers (used in plastic industry); Automatic welding robot (used in many different manufacturing industries such as shipyards .).

Dr. Le Hoai Quoc said that at the end of December 2005, there were two hand-operated plastic robots assigned to Tan Ky Nguyen enterprise for sale to Canon. There are currently some businesses like VINASHIN; Precision Mechanical Center IMI orders four more robots and all are in negotiations.

The above is part of the robot manufacturing program initiated by Ho Chi Minh City Department of Science and Technology. Participating with the department are scientific and business research units. The program has been implemented since the beginning of 2005. The program's goal is to design and manufacture robots to transfer to enterprises of Ho Chi Minh City and other provinces and cities in the south.

According to the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Science and Technology's Industrial Robot Manufacturing Project, the need to equip robots in enterprises in manufacturing sectors is huge.

In the construction materials industry, there are about 500 old technology brick production lines in the country with some manual steps such as supplying coal to kilns. Workers at this stage must regularly be exposed to toxic environments, only working for 15 years to retire and few people survive 10 years after retirement.

In the field of mechanics and metallurgy, metal casting (metal filling and mold removal) is a high-demand stage for using robots due to the heavy work environment, which can cause accidents due to burns and dust.

In the plastic industry, many plastic businesses have to import plastic products (a type of robot), which must be imported for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The manipulator takes the PET preform vertically. (Photo: Dr. Hoai Quoc) Before this situation, Ho Chi Minh City Department of Science and Technology explored the demand for robots of domestic enterprises. Through exploration, many units such as Glass - Construction Ceramic Corporation - VIGLACERA, VIFG float glass company (Tan Dong Hiep Production Zone, Di An, Binh Duong); SAMCO Company; Nha Be Shipbuilding Company; Do Thanh Plastic Company . have demand for robots. These are the types of robots such as loading and unloading, transporting products; welding shells under pressure; automotive repair; welding of ships . In particular, units such as the Mobile 113 Regiment have a need for a remote-controlled mobile robot for security protection, external and internal inspection. question points.

The Ho Chi Minh City robot program is formed from the actual demand above

The program is chaired by the Department of Science and Technology of Ho Chi Minh City, in collaboration with the Department of Science and Technology (National University of Ho Chi Minh City); National key laboratory for numerical control and system engineering at Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology; Center for deploying new technology NEPTECH; Center for Testing - Quality Measurement of Region II, General Department of Technology - Ministry of Defense.

According to PGS, Dr. Phan Minh Tan - Deputy Director of Ho Chi Minh City Department of Science and Technology, the price of domestic robots will be 20-30% cheaper than foreign robots.

In fact, right after the Program was deployed, an enterprise specialized in trading equipment and machinery for production was Tan Ky Nguyen Company (17, Phan Phu Tien, District 5, Ho Chi Minh City). At the same time, seven robotic arms pick up plastic products for plastic injection molding machines with a total value of more than 56.00USD.

Currently, according to Dr. Le Hoai Quoc, in order to meet the order needs of businesses, it is necessary to establish a formal workshop. Previously, the research, design and manufacture of robots were located at the National Key Laboratory of numerical control and system engineering at Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology.

Dr. Le Hoai Quoc said, if there is a regular factory, the robot price can be further reduced by making large quantities, the body does not have to be welded one by one but can be cast. The aluminum alloy casting body makes it cheap, makes it light and easy to transport.

According to UNECE statistics of the International Robot Federation, there are about 770,000 robots currently used in industrial production fields.Among them, 350,000 (accounting for 45.5%) in Japan, 233,000 (accounting for 30.3%) in the EU and about 14,000 (accounting for 13.5%) in North America.In Europe Germany leads with 105,000 robots, followed by Italy (47,000), France (24,000), Spain (18,000) and Britain (14,000).

During the last economic recession (1997 - 2002), the robot market decreased by an average of 12-16% per year. However, overall the decline in investment compared to other high-tech products is still significantly better.

Sales of industrial robots ordered by most of the world's largest firms, the global turnover of 2003 increased by 26% compared to the same period of 2002. Trends in the period of 2003-2006 growth in sales Robot products are generally forecasted: North America increased by 35%, Europe increased by 25%, Asia increased by 18%, and other regions increased by 18%.