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News Release from: ABB Robotics
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 18 November 2003
Robot retired after placing over 36
million welds
Leading UK manufacturer of supermarket trolleys and roller containers has just 'retired' what may be the country's oldest computer-based robot after its clocking up over 88,000h of active service.
A leading UK manufacturer of supermarket trolleys and roller containers is staking a claim to owning the country_s oldest computer-based robot The long-serving ABB (formerly ASEA) IRB6/S1 machine has completed an incredible 26 years of almost continuous operation
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 27 Apr 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
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Clares Merchandise Handling Equipment, of Wells, Somerset, which also produces airport luggage trolleys, estimates its original IRB6/S1 robot - bought in July 1977 and fitted with ESAB welding equipment for arc-welding the trolleys - clocked up a colossal 88,000 hours of service in its working life.
Although not fitted with 'run time hour clocks' or weld-counters like modern ABB robots, the company calculates the old-stager would have helped to produce over two million trolley sub-assemblies and made a staggering 36,360,000 individual welds.
And it says the robot's amazing 26-year performance would be equivalent to a domestic washing machine being used every day for 250 years! Julian Holley, Clares' Electronic Systems Manager, said: "At the time of its introduction in 1974 this robot design was nothing short of a revolution.
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The all-aluminium arm - completely electrically driven - was light and fast and the closed-loop servo system, controlled by a micro-processor, made it accurate and flexible.
When computers are so much part of our daily lives it is hard to imagine the technological advance that these machines must have represented.
At a time when computers were the preserve of large multi-national corporations and NASA, it must have been an extraordinary event to have not only a computer, but a computer controlling a robot in a small factory in the sleepy city of Wells, back in 1977.
I must admit we did not always look after it as well as we could have done.
It has had a really hard life but has been very reliable and is still in working condition.
What's more, it has done the same job throughout its life." Records show that non-computerized robots were used, especially in the USA, as long ago as the 1950s - and some were still in service until the 1990s, but Clares believes its original IRB6/S1 has the longest recorded service for any robot of its kind.
According to a report commissioned by the Department of Trade and Industry to encourage robot use in the UK in 1981 the individual robot at Clares had been in production for about four years and was the first ESAB installation and the first ASEA robot in the South West.
Documents held by the company show that the cost of the IRB6/S1 when it was newly purchased was #58,000 at a time when the average annual wage was around #8,000.
In order to upgrade its production facilities, Clares has reluctantly now 'retired' the original IRB6/S1, along with two similar robots also acquired in the late 1970s.
The company's modern, robotic production plant continues to rely extensively on ABB robots.
It has 34 production robots in total, including ABB IRBL6/S2, IRB1440/S4C, IRB60/S2, IRB6000/S3 and IRB2000/S3 units.
Peter King, Technical Support Engineer at ABB said: "We stopped selling the IRB6/S1 model, which was the first ever electrically-powered, computer controlled robot - in the mid-1980s and moved to the S2 model. Request free introductory details about products from ABB Robotics ...
There are a few of the S1 models still in operation and we are still able to service and maintain them, but I know of no other S1 robot still in operation which is anywhere as old as the one owned by Clares.".
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