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Show Page 32-T- HE HERALD. Provo. Utah. Wednesday, November 5, 1980 Steel Collar Workers Strange New Breed of Industrial Plants director of By FRED FERGUSON United Prest Intern- ational Press Intenutkmal SBhhfahhfchfchhhhh... Pffffut... Shhhhhhhhhhh. Pfut pfut... Shhhhhhhhhh. The hydraulic sounds go on, loud, lumbrous, endless. necks swing The back and forth, up and down, pause and go. ot They look and sound like great, dumb animals. In fact, they are -mechanical animals, the industrial robots of today. No R2D2s these. If they resemble anything, it is a bird perhaps an ostrich, or a crane. The body is no more than a pedestal. There is the very long neck, a short head, a beak or gripper. Reaching to the left, in a testing bay at a Dan-burConn., plant, a Unimate, as these biggies are called, picks up in its grippers a chunk of iron, lifts it high, turns it up curiously as if inspecting it, places it down on the floor, picks it up again, - y, holds it out, puts it on a box to the right. It makes a few more gyrations of this sort, then puts the chunk back where it got it in the first place, and does it all again, and again, and again. It is a "pick and place" routine, programmed in the robot's specialized computer, a very elemental machine as computers go. It is to pick and place a part, from one assembly line to another, or into and out of a curing furnace or any of several score other monotonous chores men don't like to do. Nobody is actively run- ning these machines. They go about their work on their own. Occasionally, a technician or an engineer comes by to watch. Occasionally, he decides to tell it to do something else. He picks up a "trainer" with buttons on all sides and moves the robot through a new routine, then punches a few more buttons on the computer a few feet away, recording maai-facturin- g, fit into the scheme of industrial plants today. The whole shop doesn't have to be reorganized to accommodate the robot. And they can be run by computers and master computers from conventional computer programs. Most important, their work assignments can be do. General Motors now engineering and systems. "We don't uses 23 robots and is have anything that would more enthusiastic about be viewed by the public their future applications. as a robot. All they are is In Lordstown, Ohio 32 a manipulator arm pro- weld bodies, grammed with a mini 22 do welding on Chevet-te-s in Wilmington, Del. computer to do a variety of chores, mostly pick These are the big dumb and place." robots. "If a body panel But Ford does have isn't where it's supposed robots under the defini- to be, the welding robot more complex and tion of ue Robot Institute will happily weld thin changed more easily. You of America: "A program- air," says Donald E. can set a PUMA in the n mable, Hart, head of GM middle of a half dozen manipulator designed to Research Labs' computer machines, program it to move material, parts, science department. pick up a part from one In Bay City, Mich., GM conveyor or shute, feed it tools or specialized devices through variable has I robots unloading die successively into each of programmed motions for casting machines, dipp- these machines to be the performance of a ing them in and out of tooled, then place it on a variety of tasks." quench tanks, trimming conveyor to go to the next Ford has Unimates, the dies, then cleaning work station in the Cincinnati Millicron's away the scrap. And 5 production line. One of the more specT3s, ASEAs from hefty robots load Sweden, Trallfas (which catalytic converters into tacular examples of what do spray painting) from steel containers in robots are doing now is at the Harrisburg, Pa., Norway and, on order, Milwaukee. the newer PUMAs which This is dirty work, the plant of Olivetti Corp. kind men can't do for Anyone who's ever Unimation makes. ct multi-functio- "Others call them industrial manipulators," says John Fulmer, Millicron's robot division manager and president of the Robot Institute. The. word robot has "those connotations" he savs, referring to "Star R2D2 "and C3P-0- . Wars comes along and gets everybody fused." con- Guy is more circumspect. He and other industy users of robots interviewed are cautious in discussing these machines. They are wary of leaving the implicaion they will rapidly replace large numbers of workers. Conversely, mos report general acceptance of robots by till t. Mai., enthusiastically SHOWS about their application to improve productivity and enable the automotive industry to compete more effectively with foreign imports. They also see robots as an answer to fluctuations in demand. You turn off, rather than lay off, a robot. The operator who keeps track of a group of them can be kept on to run the others. Surprisingly, Fulmer the new job in its refers the reporter to his memory. This steel collar worker chief competitor, Joe Engelberger, president of goes back to work dumbly, repeating its Unimation, whom he new assignment, a half readily calls the pioneer dozen to a couple dozen in getting industrial motions, movements that robots accepted in the accomplish work a man United States. "There are maybe 3,000 might do. Fill holes, grout, weld or 4,000 robots in the better than men can. It United States today. can weld, arch or spot, 24 Production is probably hours a day if need be. No less than 100 a month," rest breaks. Always the says Engelberger. "With same weld. Always in millions of workers, pretty much the same there's not much chance spots, with the same con- of their having any effect sistency a whole line of on the work force. spots, a series of rows of Conversely, increased on a car productivity makes for spot welds more jobs. Look at the body, say. Welding is what today's computer industry. How robots are used for more many jobs has it than anything else. There created?" Actually, are fancier robot welders Ford has the most robots that can follow an edge or of any of the U.S. 294 at premake preassigned curved automakers welds. There are robots sent. Almost all are in automotive assembly, that can spray paint poisonous work men also 243. And the great mahate. jority of them do welding, a hot, dirty job workers And there are robots that can do some pretty were glad to get rid of. Ford's most exotic use smart things assemble a whole series of parts, is at a Wixom, Mich., a plant. Four robots use bolting and screwing whole simple machine. gages to check the dimensions of auto bodies. Mere about them later. All in all, only 50 Their arms reach into car robots, the big dumb bodies, place the gages at the proper point, ones, the smaller, slightly smarter ones, each automatically record the month come out of the reading, signal if it's Danbury plants of wrong, or go on to record Unimation, largest U.S. another reading as inrobot maker. The few structed by their comother makers don't puter program. Four inspectors produce that many. Now, maybe, as they are formerly took four hours to manually check one defined in this country there are about 7,000 real auto body. With 50 bodies working industrial robots moving down the asworldwide. sembly line each hour, Among the 20 million 200 could go through U.S. industrial assembly before some out of whack line workers, hundreds of dimension was disthousands go on doing covered. Now the robots check dirty work robots might an auto body in minutes take over. and more accurately Unions would never let .them, the robots, take because it is boring work and robots don't get over, you say. Not necessarily so. bored. Guy says Ford is conWhere robots have been put to work at such jobs, sidering expanding this use of robots although it and it follows, workers have been glad plans to add robots at a unions to have them, so long as rate of about 10 percent no jobs were lost. So far, annually instead of the 30 where robots have been percent rate of recent used, they have tended to years. And Ford is using seven boost production. Result: more jobs elsewhere in robots in its new, heavily the plant. And the robots automated underbody asdo the work men don't sembly line to assemble the EscortLynx at want to do. All the auto makers are Metuchen, N.J. These into robots although some welding robots are will tell you they don't geared to operate in a know what you're talking sort of buddy system. about when you mention When one gets "sick," and doesn't work for the word. "We call them univer- mechanical reasons, it's sal transfer devices," buddy takes over the it says Paul F. Guy, Ford's chores would ordinarily 1T4-S- I tht whistling." Coax him a little and he'll confess, "They whistle while they work." How? "It waves at him. The arm goes to the point where the part should be but isn't Then it waves up and down five or six But there's more, these machines have been rigthe times to attract the ged with feeling kind you have in the operator's attention." fingers of your hands, but They do something more elemental. They more important. Humans call it tactile sensing. make mistakes. The sen "If the parts are not I correct, the Sigmas spit AsUry tfartarfJlm them out on the floor" says Wolfe. The sensors determine if the part is where it should be, if there are more. Like that. "If the part is in the cincinnatti-Milicro- n T3s which do heavy duty wrong place, the robot tries to refeed it and -- The arms move away, go to a heme position and sors help the robots protect the humans from their mistakes. "If an operator reaches into the assembly area, the sensors notice. That makes the machine go into aa escape procedure to assure the operator is not pinched or caught wait for instructions," says Wolfe. A footnote to that: That brilliant science fiction writer and futurist, Isaac Asunov, wrote a little novel called "I Robot r back in 1950. etch-a-sketc- h. MOVIfc GlIDE flbtiflMBRfi FOR FAMUJhS U: to 7B-4- CO-- OT 5& m "Parratiil Gaidaare mi SnUKeHed." Ratine raalwai parent lhe might consider Mime material unsuitable for children. It nrgr pareatt ta inquire about toe film deciding a atteadaacc. tot nHII mott parent ire kkel) ta rounder objecliuuMe (tea far (wafer riuldrra. FC: THE AWAKENING TKEATKI "fjtarral AUirartt." Film riMUint iw material K9TE Itai SS3W 731 SHOW 7:30 5:J0.7t30.i30 SSL CAT. Evemrifs IT Sat Mat 345 before mm R. Restricted." Film coa- taint; adult lpe material and thine under IK yeart of age arc not admitted except in the ol a company parent or an adult guardian. Provo orem THEATRES IAKAH X: Thin it patently an adult- pe film and no one under 18 ii admitted. The age limit may be higher in tome places. ROUS DAILY m-wx- i . 50 IOTIL $2.50 oretTI caraiiON square Ml E.1MI Si. CO-HIT -"UYTS ACAW" ty Motion Picture Association America BENJAMIN bora checks to tee whether it is right If that doesn't work, the sensors teQ it to try one more time. If it doesn't work this time, the robot notifies the operator." pieces of machinery, they can do almost anything. "One time we rigged one to do an We put a pencil in its gripper and it traced a pattern, an intricate pattern, of how to lace a ribbon." One thing about these Sigmas. They give the Impression they are happy at their work. Unlike the heaving, whooshing of the big Unimates and ACADEMY Provo 3734470 And lo, there was of NICHTLYi V 5:30-7:30-9:- SUN. MAT It I ii mm TMQfT IT fpB)Lssj IS NORTH another movie. PRIVATE 7:30 of he's doing because "they're fascinating The Army was no laughing matter ntil Judy Benjamin joined it. Q unions wherever they've been used so long as workers are not laid off. UAW officials, in fact, talk sustained periods. The threaded a typewriter robots can do it endlessly ribbon knows it takes a with no breaks. bit of technique. Three Sigma robots don't just But GM and others are thread the ribbon, they moving into smaller, assemble a whole brighter robots. Unima- cartridge and add intion designed its PUMA structions so human robot, which is very typists will know how to similar in appearance use the cartridge. Two and not much bigger than have nicknames a human arm, pretty Fascination, because it is much to GM specificafascinating to watch, tions. Ninety percent of naturally and Illusion all parts in a passenger because of the way it car are smaller than a threads that ribbon. A young mechanical enbreadbox and weigh less than 5 pounds. PUMAs gineer, Chet Wolfe, might are better geared to han- be called for lack of a dle smaller parts. gineer, Chet Wolfe, might They work conveyer be called for lack of a assembly lines in con more formal title, the junction with the jobs done by people. Thus they work, or the hissing to the air compressors in the pneumatic PUMAs, the only sound the Sigmas make, Wolfe says, "is from their motor, a kind chief of robots. His work includes the maintenance of the three Sigmas which gets a bit tricky because they are made by Olivetti in Italy and not sold in this country, ing at the end of the interview that he likes what iilr ii 7:30 ft 30 1:30-3:3- J 9 I MANN 4 egg 175N.2NDWEST I I JI 2:00 4:30 7:00 9:30 OfyGOD! BOOK II O V . DAILY; 0 Music by DrOUO toamountfttfumfteienti A8octoMmiPtorjctior Decto ctf ProtograpfAy frecJdte franc John Morns Dwcfd by Oovid lynch BoseauooniteirteoUohnMe' H mum m PQ'f warn nol upon the Bfoajwoy pov c 374-60- Panavoion JtjgjjjfSjEjr ( The Elephant Man ecutN Produce SluO'lCcxnle J and ony other tctKXKil occtxnt A Paramount Picture Man lOaUUUttnawa CHAJWSWONSON. Beyond fantasy. Beyond obsession. Beyond time itself. . . he will find her. til' lii iittt'iti utftL and BULLETS4- tuna tntiM mx nu to smut ro - Us lit 'till' WltHim 1 If 1 THE BLUES BROTHERS NIGHTLY: 2yjJMUJFt0R0M 5:30 TDWNE " 5 j ill " MY EQinGUARD 7:15-9:1- 5 r fr&i'M',' SVCO EMBASSY PICTURES 1 j i SUN. MAT. 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