Carrier Transicold’s Global Container Refrigeration factory in Singapore is embracing Industry 5.0, which refers to people working alongside robots and smart machines to deliver more customised, sustainable, and resilient operations.
The collaborative robot (cobot), which works together with employees in small spaces to assist in attaching access doors on refrigeration units, frees up workers to focus on other core and higher-value manufacturing operations. In its first year, the cobot completed its programmed task approximately 900,000 times.
Cobots have contributed more than 8,000 annualised hours of productivity in the factory, while additional automation or digitalisation are in development and scheduled for launch in the next year.
The benefits of automation and digital transformation include an additional 3% of manufacturing standard hours being automated, radio frequency identification (RFID), digital Fist-Pass-Yield, and increased production capacity.
“At Carrier Transicold, we drive disruptive innovation to make a positive impact for our customers, our employees and the planet,” said Lee Meng Huat, Carrier Transicold’s general manager of Manufacturing, Global Container Refrigeration.
In 2019, the Carrier Transicold Global Container Refrigeration facility unveiled a five-year automation roadmap to lay the groundwork for its transformation strategy and to initiate the technological infrastructure necessary for automation. The factory received its first cobot in 2021.
