FANUC, a supplier of robotics and IoT solutions that we regularly service here at GES, recently broke ground on a new $51M expansion in Auburn Hills, Michigan with intentions of expanding their business in aerospace and logistics.
The planned expansion gives the company a statewide footprint of more than 1.15M square feet. FANUC has plans to house several departments in the Auburn Hills facility, including product development, engineering, warehousing and manufacturing with an expected 100 new jobs coming as a result.
FANUC America has been busy lately, showing off their robotic capabilities in a variety of settings. Most of these displays are based around “cobotics,” where humans and robots work safely side by side. Just this month, Jacksonville Jaguars fans were introduced to robots pouring beers and operating small game stations around the team’s stadium. Additionally, the company introduced a new robot at the PACK EXPO International conference around a week ago, showcasing compact design and its collaborative capabilities with human operators.
Cobotics has risen in popularity as engineers fine tune robots to streamline and assist human processes rather than replace them. Design and functionality of cobots encourages facility managers to streamline dangerous or redundant work, freeing up human workers to focus on more complex and difficult tasks a robot would otherwise overlook or not be able to handle. FANUC’s planned expansion in Michigan plans to include laboratories that can build on these robotic improvements, furthering the collaborative nature of their machines and help address issues that can only be spotted on the production floor.
Has your company utilized robotics in some form? If so, do they act as collaborative additions to the production team? Let us know your thoughts of robotics and collaborative designs in the comments section below.