Enhancing flexibility and safety: collaborative robotics for material handling in end-of-line industrial operations

The manufacturing landscape is rapidly evolving, being characterized by the emergence of Industry 5.0, leading to a growing recognition of the importance of a human-centered, sustainable and resilient approach. In response to these needs, collaborative robotics has emerged as a promising solution to enhance flexibility in industrial operations, while ensuring a higher level of safety. Cobots enable human-robot collaboration without the need for physical barriers, reduce the footprint of the robotic station, and foster a closer working relationship between humans and machines. This article focuses on an application of collaborative robotics in end-of-line industrial operations, specifically in the unloading of products from an automatic machine. By managing repetitive tasks, such as placing the trays near the end of the line of the automatic machine, waiting for them to be filled, and placing them on a trolley, which will then be moved by the human operator, the robot significantly improves efficiency. The proposed solution involves alternating the placement of trays in two rack trolleys, allowing the worker to replace the full trolleys with empty ones at his own timing. The paper examines the potential advantages of using a human-centric approach that emphasizes operator empowerment and human oversight: the collaborative robotic cell and the automation implemented free the workers from the low value-added operations and allow them to oversee and manage multiple machines simultaneously, thus enhancing productivity. The approach behind this proposal is to keep robotic tasks simple, easily reprogrammable and modular, while empowering the human operator to engage in supervision, decision-making, and problem-solving tasks. This collaboration allows the operator to assume a supervisory role, organizing production based on identified needs, and elevating their involvement to production line management tasks