"An HD version of the Brenner-Fiedler Robot Holiday Video is available on YouTube and LinkedIn, along with their social media channels @brennerfiedler on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram."
RIVERSIDE, Calif. (Dec. 7, 2021) – Throughout North America, companies have been adding robots at a record pace, scrambling to adapt assembly lines while struggling to fill job openings for human workers.
For one Southern California business, news of the robot rush coincided with a wish to show off one of the leading-edge units it now offers businesses to help them operate more cost- effectively and competitively.
Riverside-based Brenner-Fiedler has been supplying industrial automation and pneumatic systems for nearly 75 years. More recently the firm started offering robots that can be finely tailored to a wide variety of business applications.
To demonstrate their capabilities in a clever way, the company chose a bright yellow, Santa-capped FANUC SR-12iA industrial SCARA robot. A Selective Compliance Assembly Robot Arm, one that mimics the hinge-like movement of a human arm. A robot ideal for high-speed, precision applications such as assembly, pick-and-place, testing, inspection and packaging.
Brenner-Fiedler combined the in-house knowhow of robotics engineer Andrew Pilarski and mechanical engineering intern Justin Salamat to program the machine to precisely apply line after line of royal icing-like caulking on a bright red cake created by sales support executive Christine Lanting.
Next, after a quick armature switch, a separate programming routine used a delicate amount of vacuum pressure to lift, carry and place a handful of peppermint candies and gingerbread men.
The end result? A sweet surprise set to merry music – Brenner-Fiedler’s swooshing logo rendered in “frosting” at the center of a festive cake decorated entirely by robot labor.
According to Pilarski, prepping the robot for the script’s multiple tasks required only a handful of hours across a few days, a testament to how reliable and versatile they are.
After Lanting dressed the “set” with festive yuletide props, it took just a few dozen takes to capture the robot’s entire decorating process, then a few weeks for Redlands, Calif.-based videoFP to whittle them into a jaunty 49 seconds.
An HD version of the Brenner-Fiedler Robot Holiday Video is available on YouTube and LinkedIn, along with their social media channels @brennerfiedler on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
According to one industry group, North American factories and other industrial users ordered 37 percent more robots in the first nine months of 2021 than during the same period in 2020, at a total cost of around $1.48 billion.
Some say the rise in robot orders is evidence of companies investing to keep up with surging demand against a backdrop of ongoing shortages. Other businesses are turning to automation for the first time after struggling to fill jobs during the pandemic.
In business since 1948, Brenner-Fiedler sees a bright future ahead, one in which more and more companies are considering not whether to automate but whether they can afford not to
[Editor’s Note: To learn more about Brenner-Fiedler, call (800) 843-5558 or visit www.brenner-fiedler.com.]