‘Robbie’ the FANUC Robot Applies Missile Coatings

The common reaction to a new industrial robot installation is that a human is going to lose their job. In reality, the robot often creates a situation where a company can do more work or squeeze more capacity out of a line or factory. This creates job security for employees and often causes an increased demand for humans before and after the robotic cells.

Aerobotix recently installed a robotic painting system to apply corrosion prevention coatings to a Missile Program. Increased production rates were ‘bottle-necking’ in the paint shop area and putting extreme stress on the manual painter to try to keep up. The robot now paints the missile in a fully automatic mode and is able to keep pace with production rates while outputting repeatable quality. The manual painter was fully trained on the Human Machine Interface PC and operates and ‘feeds’ the robot every day. The robot, now affectionately known as Robbie, is a welcome member of the manufacturing team.