Siemens targets 80% automation, ORAFOL halves inspection time, ISO 21423 for robots
Siemens plans 80% automation in its plants, ORAFOL halves optical inspection time with Zebra AI vision, and A3 publishes a mobile robot interoperability standard.
Factory floor
Siemens aims for 80% automation in its plants, starting in Erlangen
Siemens expects its manufacturing plants to reach 80% automation, according to Engineering.com. The first factory to receive the upgrades is the Erlangen electronics operation, which will receive a $560 million investment through 2030.
ORAFOL halves optical inspection times with Zebra AI vision
ORAFOL Fresnel Optics has halved inspection times and processed more than 1.5 million optical components with Zebra's machine vision software, according to Zebra Technologies. Inspection of lenses sometimes measuring just 4 mm had required up to 15 people. ORAFOL worked with system integrator ID Engineering on a second system for optical windows.
Robotics
A3 publishes ISO 21423:2026 for mobile robots from multiple vendors
The Association for Advancing Automation published ISO 21423:2026, a standard for communications among industrial mobile robots regardless of vendor or model. Robots can share location, speed, direction, condition, tasking and availability. A3 says this means fewer cases of robots interfering with each other's paths.
From the tracker
- Siemens: 7 named customer deployments in our tracker, 3 in production; latest: PepsiCo (pilot).
- Mobile robots: 11 named mobile robot deployments tracked, 9 in production and 1 pilot; most in logistics (3).
- AI inspection: 23 named visual inspection deployments tracked, 18 in production and 4 pilots; most in electronics (4).
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