When to automate?
There are an unlimited number of reasons and situations that can trigger the move to automation. So how do you stay aware and not miss the signals that its time to do so? Looking at some of the situations that may be a trigger for automation and some of the symptoms that the time is upon you are the goal here.
The easiest is when you have a volume of the same thing or a reasonably similar part. If you are making door stops or any product for an established customer and you are confident that the work will lead well into the future it makes sense to automate it. The payback on the equipment is very likely there and you cut the labor and total investment in each part. You also give the customer consistency and reduce or eliminate rejections. In the mid and long term you will increase profits and satisfy a primary customer. It becomes an automated process that just produces profit with out much effort.
Labor is another reason that is becoming more common. Fewer people are excited about working factory jobs and its a trend only getting more common by the day. Be it frequent no shows, poor performance or high turn over it makes production tough. As you have to pay more and more to get people the problem just gets worse. Automation helps deal with this by reducing the people needed for the task. It lets you take the people you do have and use them for other tasks. So if labor is or is becoming an issue it is a signal to start looking into automation.
Speed is another common trigger for automation. If you have 8 people hand finishing parts and you are falling short on volumes what do you do? Well a good robotic cell can produce the output of 4 people. With no other changes adding a cell would give an additional 50% of output relatively easily. People get tired so their output has a bell curve to it over a shift. They can finish a given part in 5 min early in the day but in the afternoon it can be more like 10 min as their back starts to hurt and they are tired. Then one person is faster or slower than the person next to them so the output is not consistent across people and time of day. Add 2 cells and move 4 of the people to other tasks and you still have 150% of the volume you had before. Keep 2 of the people as operators of the 2 cells and you would likely still see an improvement in output and consistency while freeing up 6 people for other departments.
These are just a few of the most common situations that trigger automation. The challenge is to see the problems coming over the horizon. Once the problem has made it to your door the situation is worse as you are left with less time to plan and prepare. Anytime someone says "well we have always done it that way" it is time to look into that process.