5 Tips to Ensure a Successful Robot Deployment

By Dale Walsh, VP of strategy & innovation at Roboworx

While North American robot sales aren’t as prolific as they were during the pandemic, they are still being deployed in big numbers throughout workplaces across North America. In fact, in the first three quarters of 2024, more than 23,000 robots were ordered, according to the Association for Advancing Automation (A3), only 2% 2023 sales during the same period – and industries such as food & consumer goods and life sciences were up 60% and 41% respectively. With ongoing labor shortages across myriad industries, robots are successfully taking over often repetitive tasks that are challenging to fill with human workers – and other companies are taking note.

For many, they have become an integral member of the team, ensuring productivity remains high for companies struggling to fill the dull, dirty and dangerous tasks that human workers aren’t wanting to do. But it isn’t always roses. In a recent Wall Street Journal article, the president of a Cleveland-based manufacturer claimed that “robots are finicky” and “some companies…underestimated the maintenance and programming skill needed to deploy them to more complicated tasks.”

This definitely isn’t what any robot vendor wants to hear. A robot collecting dust in a customer’s facility because it wasn’t working as expected or their environment changed, and they couldn’t reprogram it to adapt results in a frustrated customer and lost opportunities for repeat business and brand loyalty.

If you’ve already purchased and deployed robots in your facility, you might have been offered a service-level agreements (SLAs) to ensure basic maintenance and diagnostics. Unfortunately, these agreements rarely address the root issues that can hinder performance or even render a robot obsolete. Robots often require adaptation and troubleshooting that SLAs can’t fully cover. For instance, a robot installed in a manufacturing facility or warehouse may work well initially, but changes in layout or staff can quickly cause problems if the robot isn’t regularly updated or reprogrammed.

To reduce the chance of issues with your robots, you need to start out on the right foot by integrating the robot properly into your operation and optimizing its use for what you want it to do. Consider these five best practices to maximize the robot’s impact on your business and ensure an expected faster return on investment (ROI).

Here are five best practices maximize the robot’s impact on your business:

1. Ensure Correct Installation

Installing a robot involves unpacking it, powering it up, testing it, mapping it for the facility, configuring it with the appropriate software, and training your staff on how to use it. These might sound like simple steps, but you need the right team to ensure it’s done properly.

Since your expertise is your business, not robotics, look for a manufacturer or retailer with experienced robot technicians who can efficiently manage each installation step and provide best practices tailored to environments like yours. Interview installers to assess their experience:

• Are they robotic specialists, or have they merely installed photocopiers or refrigerators prior to your installation?
• Are they full-time employees committed to your long-term success or will you never see them again after the robot is running?
• Are they engineers either from the robot’s original equipment manufacturer (OEM) or contracted with them who can offer insights into installation and ongoing service.

Their expertise in robotics – and tie-into the downstream services – can be instrumental in the success of the installation and overall project.

2. Be Sure Your SLA Includes Maintenance

Robots may be easy to use but they are still complex machines with hundreds of parts and associated software. They require regular maintenance to keep them functioning optimally. While there may be some basic maintenance you can do on your own, it is likely better use of your time to get help from your robot manufacturer or seller. Since SLAs aren’t all the same, or adequately sufficient in many cases, ensure you get a service and success plan that includes not only repairs but also a robust preventative maintenance plan with on-going customer success and support.

This preventative maintenance is key to maximizing uptime of the robots and even increasing the adoption and your overall customer experience. Ongoing success and support like this will offload the management of the robots to a qualified and knowledgeable team that can quickly help with all the little configuration nuances that can change in an often dynamic workplace.

A service contract that includes preventative maintenance, customer success, and support can help reduce costs associated with downtime, and increase the success of your robotic employees.

3. Provide Proper – and Regular – Training

Providing regular training for those working with and alongside robots is essential. This training should cover how to use the robots effectively and how you want them integrated into your operations. Unfortunately, the reason robots end up unused is because staff members lack proper training. While some training can be conducted via remote video, you’ll get more effective training with live sessions that all employees to engage, ask questions, and provide feedback. Partner with a robot vendor with trainers who understand your operations and can offer continuous training to both new hires and current employees as refreshers.

4. Don’t Skimp on Improvements and Updates to Your Robot Operations

As robots expand across workplaces in all industries, new best practices emerge that you can adapt for your businesses. Robots are powerful tools that help you remain competitive, differentiate your business, and enhance customer satisfaction. Since many facilities are dynamic environments requiring constant changes, make sure your robots are being updated to keep up with the facility changes. These updates can usually be made as part to the service contract. Regularly evaluate how you can leverage the robot or robots most effectively within your operations. A knowledgeable partner can provide valuable insights that have proven successful for other customers they work with, leading to significant improvements in your own processes.

5. Remember the Big Picture

Companies generally purchase robots to generate economic benefits, so consider three critical aspects to ensure you’re getting those benefits:

• Cost: What are the monthly costs associated with your robot? If it malfunctions for a day or a week, what does that cost you? Strive to receive at least as much benefit from the robot as its costs, considering not only savings on personnel but also improvements in efficiency and customer service.
• Revenue: Find ways to turn the robot into a revenue-generator, not just cost saver. For example, can it offer more services/products? Can it be used as part of an event such as an open house to demonstrate your innovative processes to your customers or even used in post advertisements to promote other items or services.
• Adoption & Usage: Robots don’t do any good at all if they aren’t used. Make sure your robot supplier effectively trains your employees, maintains the robots in good working order and constantly adapts the robots to staff turnover and changes in your work environment. Robots should make your work – and even your employee’s work – better and easier so they can focus on more valuable tasks.

Following these tips will keep robots from turning “finicky” and ensure your robot investment pays off in greater operational efficiency and productivity.

Dale Walsh is the VP of strategy & innovation at Roboworx,  a services company that partners with robot manufacturers and integrators to ensure customer success throughout the lifecycle of their robot fleets. With more than 30 years of experience in field services, Dale has helped end users reduce reactive service calls – and robot downtime – by as much as 93 percent.