See our new range of Hanwha cobots at the open house – 17 & 18 October

The Dugard 2018 open house is set to be held on 17 and 18 October at our head office in Hove (BN3 7BX).

The newly launched range of cobots from Hanwha will be on show as well as a good selection of machines from our large Dugard range, CNC lathes from SMEC and another exciting new launch which needs to be kept under wraps until September.

Hanwha cobot range – made in Korea

Cobots, or collaborative robots, are taking the industrial market by storm with a worldwide growth rate of 55%.  Uptake in the UK has been slightly slower but that is about to change with the UK launch of Hanwha cobots, available exclusively at Dugard.  Designed to work alongside your team, Hanwha have conducted extensive research into safety, achieving collision detection at 25~150NM.  Their innovative sensors, combined with a virtual safety fence to control the speed they operate at, make the cobots completely safe to use without guarding.

Automation in the UK has had to tackle with the perception that robots are expensive, inflexible and difficult to programme and Hanwha have made addressing each of these concerns a priority.  As a financial investment they are up to a third less expensive than traditional industrial robots.  They can be used with any CNC machine, the smallest HCR-3 model is compact enough to squeeze into even the tightest production space, while the largest HCR-12 is an impressive heavy duty model perfect for use with heavy products.  Positioning is simple as they can be set up on the floor or mounted to a wall or ceiling.  Programming couldn’t be easier with their user friendly GUI and a hand guided teach function.

Automation doesn’t have to come at a cost to jobs, instead they can “collaborate” and work alongside your existing workforce to increase productivity and quality.  Adding a cobot to your production process means instead of managing 2 or 3 machines, an operator could now manage up to eight or ten, and that production surge could result in an increase in staff needed for logistics and quality control.  As Britain prepares to leave the EU automation is becoming more and more necessary – easy access to European trade may be in question but by automating and driving down production costs, UK manufacturing will be able to compete on price with manufacturers in China and India.

All the information for the Hanwha range is available in our automation section of the website.  Of course we’ll be demonstrating the cobots at our open house, 17 & 18 October and you’ll also be able to see them at our stand at Robotics and Automation at Arena MK 10 & 11 October.  If you’d like to discuss incorporating cobots into your team call on 01273 732286 or email [email protected]