The use of robotics in South Africa will increase as industrial systems can be integrated to provide businesswide real-time production and quality information and control, says industrial automation company Omron South Africa national projects manager Jacques Labuschagne.

South African industry is lagging the rest of the world in its use of robots in industrial sorting, packaging and quality control, he says.

Omron has reported high levels of sales of visual inspection systems in industry and variable-speed drives, specifically for pivot irrigation farming applications to reduce electricity costs.

However, the South African market is changing and, based on international trends, robotics will increasingly be used for quality inspection and increasing the speed of picking and sorting to improve throughput volumes, he says.

“Our vision is to provide turnkey robots for industrial applications in South Africa. Omron has robotic basket pickers and sorters that can recognise, pick and sort rapidly, as the company’s servos can react in concert to inputs within 200 microseconds, which are some of the fastest speeds in the industry.”

Further, quality inspection and conformance can be done using Omron’s vision and inspection systems. This will enable companies to control the quality of products to meet international standards.

“It is common for local subsidiaries of international companies to use our inspection systems, as they have to meet the standards of their global parent. However, we also foresee local manufacturers and industry using our vision and inspection systems to improve quality, especially for export markets.”

Further, South African companies are grappling with hardened labour problems, including frequent stoppages, poor productivity and demands for exorbitant wages. Many identify the introduction and use of robotics and automation and control systems as the only way to ensure the sustainability of their companies, the use of which can remove some of the risks of volatile labour demands and poor consistency of labour quality, highlights Labuschagne.

Meanwhile, Omron also has rapid-process programmable logic controllers (PLCs) to control industrial systems. These new PLCs have giant Intel i5 and i7 processors, making them some of the fastest processing PLCs on the market, he avers.

These rapid process-control capabilities support the company’s other products and systems, such as its motion controllers, picking and sorting robots and manufacturing automation and control systems, as well as light-curtain safety systems. These capabilities enable real-time control and feedback for users from their manufacturing and packaging lines.

“The speed of process control possible in industry has advanced significantly over the past three years. South African industries are tentatively investigating the application of industrial robots, control and automation systems for increased speed, production, safety and quality. We expect to see more demand for our systems and equipment in the next year,” concludes Labuschagne.