Stewart Robinson discusses the steps that need to be taken to ensure safe and reliable robotic solutions for industrial applications.

In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, manufacturers are navigating a complex terrain fraught with challenges such as labour shortages, an expanding skills gap, and intense global competition. Amidst these pressures, businesses are striving for greater efficiency, sustainability, and operational excellence.

Recent developments are opening up new possibilities for deploying robots in logistics applications.

Barry Weller looks at how the introduction of cobots has revolutionised the entire robot industry and improved access to industrial robotic systems.

Steve Sands considers why developments in robotics are gathering pace and highlights some of the most recent advances.

A fully automated production line employs two hygienic robots to process cheese into sticks and feed them to a packaging machine. This has raised the standard of hygiene – and doubled production capacity for Dutch family company, Vepo Cheese.

Suzanne Gill reports on how cobots are being used in industrial environments.

Simon Jenkins comments on the next stage in the evolution of robotics – mobility and autonomous operation.

Hanry Martel discusses the benefits of incorporating vision technology into industrial robots.

Julian Ware explores how advances in robotics and automation are making manufacturing and logistics companies of all sizes more productive, flexible, and resilient.

A recent report from IDTechEx explores whether cobots are safe to work alongside humans. 

A Belgian pork producer has installed robots as part of a just-in-time order fulfilment system that delivers customised products to supermarkets more quickly by disconnecting production from delivery.

While the many benefits that robots can bring in manufacturing applications are widely understood, misconceptions around complexity have deterred many manufacturers from investing in robotic automation. Julian Ware looks at how developments in software are helping to address this issue – making robots as easy to use as possible.

Dr Paul Rivers explains how small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can level the playing field with their larger competitors by embracing automation with an approach that best suits their business needs. 

Ease of programming was a top request for the robot chosen for use as a part of an innovative new packaging cell.

POSIMAT, the Barcelona-based world leading producer of bottle handling systems, brings another innovation to the market with the POSIROBOT. This solution, developed with OMRON's Delta Quattro robots, provides a solution to constant format changes and the complex designs of some bottles. Its delicate handling means that this is a versatile, easy to use, highly flexible and super competitive solution.

Jordi Artigas explains the mobile robot options on offer today and the benefits they are bringing in a growing range of applications.

Stuart Coulton offers his thoughts on robotic trends and the growing importance of robotics across the manufacturing sector.

Nigel Smith highlights some of the main trends for robotics in 2022 and examines the latest developments in artificial intelligence (AI) and more.

ZND UK, a fencing and barrier manufacturer, has within 10 years moved from a mostly manual manufacturing set up to having two automated production lines and a variety of robots. This has resulted in a five-fold increase in productivity.