Robots for SMEs

Welding, polishing, screwing in screws, stacking pallets – these are among the many different tasks the cobots – human-robot collaborations – are able to perform or facilitate. But many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) either can’t afford to use them or don’t have the necessary know-how. Coboworx wants to change that. And to do this, the young company from Trier is basing itself in Dresden’s Robot Valley. It offers all kinds of innovative solutions specially tailored to SME needs, and which are designed to help SMEs advance digitisation in their operations.

What does Olaf Gehrels, founder and managing director of robot software company Coboworx (1st from left), believe will pose barriers to the spread of robotics at SMEs? Firstly, the ecosystem. ‘The Smartphone became successful through the ecosystem with lots of apps. But nothing like that yet exists in industrial robotics’, says Gehrels. Secondly, he cites the high costs for ensuring occupational health and safety when dealing with robots. And the third hurdle is the elaborate and cost-intensive programming involved. ‘It makes it difficult for robots to become mass-produced articles.