Adept Technology Inc's Customers Performance

Packaging
The demand for consumer packaged goods (CPG) continues to increase, as factors such as expediency, variety and safety have become more important to consumers. Additionally, automated packaging can deliver benefits such as convenience, branding or market differentiation. Increased use of packaging in various consumer products is fueling the need for automation to address the challenges that arise in the packaging process. These challenges include the need for flexibility, the need to maintain a clean or sterile environment, the ability to process high volumes and the ability to track products that are perishable or that may pose future unknown risks. Cost considerations are also an important catalyst for automated packaging, particularly in applications such as food, where products are often packaged locally for various reasons including freshness, regional branding or specific regulatory requirements. Automation is often a more cost efficient alternative to maintaining a relatively larger number of employees as productivity can be achieved more quickly, in less space and with less risk of contamination.

Electronics
The combination of high product volumes and continual price erosion in the electronics market has long created demand for the use of automation to ensure the highest yields at the lowest cost. Automation solutions are used to help manufacture and assemble a host of electronic products such as computer disk drives, cell phones and printer cartridges and components. This market is very cyclical in terms of its investment in automation technology, with periods of significant investment in adding capacity or enhancing existing systems typically followed by periods of relatively low investment. As the product lifecycle for consumer electronics continues to shorten, manufacturers need increasingly flexible automation lines enabled by robotic solutions.

Industrial
Automation enables important benefits in the industrial market, including higher yields, better and more consistent quality and lower cost. For example, in assembly applications, automation can provide the speed and precision required to handle small, high-volume components such as sensors and electronic components. In industrial manufacturing applications, the automation of machine tools and other industrial equipment provides a more productive and safer environment while allowing human labor to be re-deployed to higher value added tasks. This is particularly true in the use of mobile robots to autonomously transport goods within a factory, increasing efficiency. Additionally, automation plays an important role in containing costs in high labor cost regions such as Europe, where governmental policies have encouraged industrial manufacturing to remain local.

Logistics/Warehouse
One of the largest sectors where logistics is of primary consideration is in warehousing and distribution. Managers of these processes are faced with multiple operational and environmental challenges while simultaneously facing ever increasing customer requirements. Automation is often a financially attractive alternative to manual processes not only for labor cost savings, but also due to the potential improvements in productivity, order accuracy, reduced space requirements, increased volume capacity, and control of inventory. While this growth in automation is occurring, there is also a need for supply chains to become more agile to serve rapidly changing markets. To address these divergent requirements, automation is being required to offer heightened levels of flexibility. This is increasingly achieved through the use of mobile robot technologies such as the Lynx mobile robot to autonomously transport materials as instructed directly by the warehouse management systems (WMS) software.

Food
Driven by global competition, changes in consumer buying habits and tightening of governmental safety and hygiene requirements, food processors worldwide are turning from hard automation and manual packing towards robotics in order to achieve food safety, lower cost, manufacturing flexibility and improved sanitation in their food packaging lines. Labor shortages and high turnover are further driving food manufacturers towards automated solutions. Primary food packaging sectors, where robots come in direct contact with food, include raw and processed meats and poultry, seafood, raw and processed fruits and vegetables, baked goods and confectionary. Secondary food application sectors, where packaged food is placed into larger packages, include kitting, cartoning and palletizing.

Flexible Manufacturing
As manufacturers worldwide strive to respond to both B2B and B2C markets that are constantly demanding new and more varied products, designing processes that support multiple product lines or numerous short life-cycle products are major challenges. Companies that manufacture consumer products have SKUs that number in the hundreds or thousands with updates, changeovers and short delivery times requiring high adaptability. Faster, more accurate and multi-arm robotic cells bring the ability to run different products on a production line, perform a wide variety of repeatable tasks, and handle multiple applications, contributing greatly to flexible work cells. These capabilities, along with more sophisticated robotic end effectors, flexible feeders instead of SKU specific bowl feeders and autonomous indoor vehicles instead of hard conveyances, are enabling efficient product changeover and flexibility that reduce costs and time to market. The Lynx Cart Transporter enables the automated replenishment of parts/components line-side along with WIP movement and finished goods delivery.

Scientific and Academic Research
Governments promote funding for robotics research as a way to increase manufacturing competitiveness and productivity. Investigations are carried out within university engineering and computer science departments, as well as standalone government and military research labs. Disciplines include mapping and navigation, machine vision, multi-robot systems control, human-robot interaction, mobile manipulation and robot-enabled medical applications. When possible, laboratories will use pre-built robotic assemblies in favor of developing specialized hardware. Platforms are programmable with open architecture and can be modified for specific investigations and integrated with customized effectors and sensors.