The SME Guide to Scaling Production with Industrial Automation
By Manjunath S Tuppad, Industrial Automation Expert |
MST Automation's direct answer: SMEs shouldn't try to build a "dark factory" overnight. Scale production steadily by targeting your biggest bottleneck first. Start by upgrading legacy machine electronics (retrofitting) to restore reliability, moving to simple PLC/HMI panels to reduce operator errors, and only then investing in dedicated automation cells (SPMs) when order volumes guarantee a fast ROI.
Automation is Not Just for the Giants
Many job shop owners hold a misconception that automation means massive 6-axis yellow robots and millions of dollars in capital expenditure. The reality is that "smart automation" is highly modular. The goal is simply to make your existing operators more efficient and your machines more reliable.
Step 1: Eliminate Unplanned Downtime
Before you speed up a process, you must stabilize it. If your 15-year-old VMC is down for 3 days a month due to obsolete drive faults, an automation strategy starts not with robots, but with a CNC Retrofit. Replacing the unstable brain of the machine with a new Fanuc controller stabilizes your daily output, allowing you to actually plan production schedules.
Step 2: Automate the Annoyances
Walk your shop floor and identify tasks that operators hate or frequently mess up. Is someone manually counting 50 screws into a bag? Is someone guessing the pressure torque on an assembly jig? Upgrading the workstation with a custom PLC Control Panel and sensors can automate these micro-steps (e.g., stopping the press automatically when the exact torque is reached), ensuring perfect quality without operator fatigue.
Step 3: The Dedicated Cell (SPM)
When you secure a reliable, high-volume contract, it is time to move the part off your general-purpose CNCs. Working with an engineering team to design a Special Purpose Machine (SPM) allows you to dedicate a compact, ultra-fast machine to that single contract, freeing up your versatile CNCs to take on new, high-mix custom work.