[VIDEO] Optimizing Production With Kodiak Edging Machines and Robotic Arm

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Here we help fabricate glass. So we bring in glass in an annealed state and we turn it into either tempered products, laminated products or insulated glass products. We do a ton of fab and polish work which helps serve general contractors and glazing contractors in the shower door space.

When the time came for us to make the decision about upgrading equipment, the Kodiak® came to the forefront because of its ease of use, quick to integrate, low installation time – all of those things kind of brought it to the forefront. The other thing that helped is having spare parts here in the United States, that was a big selling point for us.

We love working with HHH. They’ve been partners of ours for a while. The way they integrate into our system and the way they integrate with our teams and our people is just top-notch. Very easy to do business with and that’s something that we look for when we’re looking for a strategic partner.

One of the big problems that we had as an organization is the restricting and the tightness of the labor market. By installing a robot cell with the Kodiak polishers in conjunction, we’re now able to run two machines with only one employee. This has been huge for us. It’s increased throughput, it’s reduced the amount of glass handling that we have to do and it’s also really energized the employee that’s running it. Because now he sees value in his interaction with that machine and how he’s doing it. He doesn’t take it as “hey the robot’s taking my place”, he looks at it as “hey the robot’s my partner” and the robot’s working on the other end of this for me, so it’s been really good in that scenario. 

It’s also allowed us to serve a niche market. In today’s structure, being able to get to specific customers with specific product types, that’s important and to be able to do that quickly – on time, complete, those things matter and that robot cell is solving that problem for us. 

If I were asked my favorite part of working with HHH, it would be dealing with their people. Their people come in, they’re humble, highly competent, well-trained and all of those things matter when you’re doing a project that has this much on the line. At the end of the day, we have to deliver to our customers and we have to deliver these project lines and having guys like HHH with you, that that will make or break a project. And that’s what happened in our case.