Cobots hit the mark at Last Arrow

A Last Arrow employee hand guides the CRX cobot. FANUC

More than a decade ago, Orrville, Ohio-based Last Arrow Mfg. started out as a contract manufacturer for welding projects with just seven employees. Since then, the company has experienced significant growth and now employs over 85 people and specializes in a number of metal fabrication processes including laser cutting, forming, CNCs, and welding.

Like many small shops, Last Arrow’s production rates are typically low-volume/high-mix runs with various materials that require constant part changeover, so flexibility is key. A combination of factors had the company’s President Matt Bowling searching for ways to continue to grow the business, meet customer needs, and improve production planning to keep his skilled workers focused on projects that required their expertise.

Automation Options

According to Bowling, there’s never really been a good automation solution for small shops.

He was of the mindset that standard robots were designed for large manufacturers, and, therefore, were too expensive. Hard automation just didn’t have the flexibility he needed, so he decided to experiment with two different robot cells. However, they were not a good fit for a wide product mix.

“We needed a cost-effective solution that could handle low- or high-volume part runs; a big robot wasn’t going to give us that type of flexibility,” said Bowling. Then, at a meeting with The Lincoln Electric Co., someone showed him the FANUC CRX cobot. He was impressed by the app-based programming that could be performed on a tablet. “I immediately said, ‘I want two of them.’”

Since Last Arrow had received a contract to build carts for Lincoln Electric’s welding cobot cells, discussions continued, and soon Bowling purchased his first two CRX cobots.

Learning Leap

“The cobots were delivered, set up, and running right after lunch,” added Bowling. “We literally had an hour of assembly, and about a half-day of training, and we were running two different part numbers that first day.”

Bowling went on to emphasize how easy it is to learn and use the cobot. “After our two cobots ran for about a week, the person we had trained on it had to call off work on a Friday. The parts needed to run all weekend long, but our other welders were already busy on different projects. So, we asked another employee who was not a welder and had no robot experience, but was interested in learning. We basically showed him how to load the fixture and what buttons to push on the cobot, and it ran for 12 hours per day throughout the weekend without any hiccups.”

Since the initial implementation of the cobots, Last Arrow’s employees have quickly embraced them. “We found that anyone can learn how to program this cobot within a couple of hours,” said Bowling. “We were able to cross-train multiple employees, so now we have several people who are qualified to operate it.”

Scott Musser, lead programmer at Last Arrow with over 20 years of robot programming experience, said the cobot is the easiest programming he’s ever done, and the tablet interface is the most user-friendly he’s worked with to date.

Cobot Benefits

As a business owner, Bowling understands the risks and challenges of getting projects up and running, and the initial start up costs for automation equipment and employee training.

He views the cobots as a way to balance a heavier workload with increasing overhead costs, and still retain his skilled workers.

“Labour is very competitive right now, and you need to pay the talented workers a premium wage if you want them to stay,” he added. “So, by investing in the automation, some labour costs increased, but our overall costs decreased.

“I think of the cobot as a long-term strategy to increase our productivity,” he continued. “The CRX is compact and can work in any type of space. It’s also flexible and can be easily moved around to take on various tasks. Now we have the cobots handling the simple and more repetitive work, which frees up our skilled welders to do the more challenging jobs that require their high level of expertise. And our team sees the benefits first-hand because we’re able to get more product out the door.”

Since implementing the cobots, Last Arrow has experienced significant benefits. One key improvement was reducing the time it took to produce a weldment—from two hours to just 17 minutes—an 85 per cent reduction. On another project, the company was able to go from delivering 12 finished products a week to 20 in a very short time, a 67 per cent increase in production. On yet another job, the team used a cobot for a tedious weld that was estimated to take a manual welder nine minutes per part. Now they are running 10 parts on a fixture in just five minutes and 20 seconds—a 94 per cent time savings per part.

The cobots also enable Last Arrow to get more life out of consumables, since the automated processes are fixed. So, with automation, the per-part cost is less since the cobot doesn’t accidently run over a weld lead or drop parts; for a big project this can be a significant cost reduction.

Production Planning Support

While many companies today are facing a labour shortage, Bowling said that’s not an issue at Last Arrow. In fact, a key reason to automate from the beginning was to help his industrial engineers plan each process more accurately, reduce costs, and improve efficiencies. He went on to explain that with the cobots, it’s much easier to schedule the percentages of a job that will be welded robotically or manually.

“Before the cobots we had to use our skilled welders to do the simplest jobs, and that was very dull and often difficult due to the repetitive nature of the movements. Today we can really focus on what jobs the skilled workers will do and have the robots do the monotonous tasks,” he said. Better scheduling is helping Last Arrow exceed its production goals, achieve a quick ROI, and take on new business. Most importantly, the automation has helped the company use its employees to their full potential, which makes them feel empowered to accomplish higher-level tasks.

Customer Support

Last Arrow has not had any performance issues with the cobots to date. In terms of durability and reliability, they’ve hit the mark on every project. And, while no major software issues have occurred, there was a minor problem on a Saturday that caused a production delay. Bowling called Lincoln Electric’s support team, the technician provided instructions for uploading the correct inputs and outputs, and the issue was resolved quickly. “The relationship that we have with Lincoln, and their level of support is outstanding,” said Bowling. “They are always available to ensure that our cobots are running with the latest software updates, even on weekends, which is unheard of these days.”

Future Goals

Today less than one year after getting its first two CRX cobots, Last Arrow’s business is humming with the help of 12 cobots that currently process nearly 100 different part types. Bowling sees future growth opportunities and hopes to have 20 to 25 more cobots for welding and other tasks such as metal finishing and machine tending.

“One thing I’d say to other small manufacturers who are looking to grow their business is that cobots are for everyone. They provide more opportunities for all fabricators, large and small, to automate their systems. In the next five to 10 years I think that every successful weld shop will have a cobot.

“We started out as a bid shop, and now we’re a manufacturing partner to a variety of businesses. With the help of cobot automation, I expect that we’ll continue to take on new business, increase employee satisfaction, and achieve higher profits.”

Last Arrow Mfg., www.lastarrowmfg.com

Lincoln Electric, www.lincolnelectric.com

FANUC, www.fanucamerica.com