Automation at a Shenzhen manufacturer using Hikrobot STU robots
Robots, conveyor lines and cameras keep finished handsets moving through the factory's warehouse, says Hikrobot, which built the system with Honor.
A phone comes off the line every 18.5 seconds at Honor's (荣耀) global manufacturing center in Pingshan, Shenzhen, according to Hikrobot (海康机器人), which built the plant's warehouse system for finished phones together with Honor.
Phones are hard to keep moving, Hikrobot explains. They have many parts, their batteries face shipping restrictions, the line needs precise deliveries by the hour, and foldable and flagship models are fragile and valuable.
Honor and Hikrobot's answer, in about 1,000 square meters of warehouse space, combines conveyor lines, robot arms, autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), industrial cameras and what Hikrobot calls STU robots, which pack stock densely and bring goods to workers for picking. Hikrobot says the system moves 750 cartons an hour in and out of storage, reshuffles stock automatically when things are quiet, and sorts goods in minutes.
The mobile robots don't stay on one floor: they ride elevators to carry loads between levels. Containers travel in pairs, a full one going out as an empty one comes back, and an optical character recognition (OCR) scan logs each delivery.
Sources: 机器人在线 imrobotic (from 海康机器人 Hikrobot)
Editor: Ian Lamont
