Following a major redesign to incorporate a brand-new demonstration area, OMRON’s Automation Centre is helping to ease the transition to automation for manufacturers, putting them on the fast-track to the factory of the future. The Barcelona-based facility enables visitors from across the EMEA region to collaborate with OMRON to develop general and application-specific industrial automation solutions, including robotics, vision, quality control, flexible manufacturing and AI, increasing the chance of project success and boosting confidence in the marketplace.

The Omron Team welcome visitors to see the factory of the future at the Automation Centre in Barcelona

De-risking project investment

Harnessing OMRON’s 88 years of applied knowledge and experience, the newly updated and expanded Automation Centre allows customers to experience all the benefits of a connected, intelligent factory ­– including reduced waste, increased throughput and greater production flexibility – before making an investment.

By facilitating collaboration at the earliest stage of a project between OMRON’s specialist engineers, its supply chain partners and the customer, the Automation Centre generates a unique pool of intelligence, which can be harnessed to turn preliminary ideas into robust yet simplified automation solutions. Besides unlocking innovation, this proof-of-concept initiative enables any potential issues to be identified and addressed during the design phase before they become real-world problems. Helping manufacturers to avoid taking decisions which could stifle innovation or prove unnecessarily costly or time-consuming, the Automation Centre de-risks project investment, reassuring customers that their solution will be fit for purpose from day one.

Inspiring innovation

Antoni Farràs, General Manager of the OMRON Automation Centre Barcelona, comments: “We aim to inspire manufacturers, system integrators and machine builders to adapt their business to meet the changing needs of customers and society. Our goal is to help them realise the possibilities of innovative manufacturing and address current challenges; for example, by creating new solutions to respond to and recover from the global pandemic.”

Antoni Farràs, General Manager at the OMRON Automation Centre, Barcelona

As well as facilitating the factories of the future, OMRON’s Automation Centre also has a key part to play in inspiring the next generation of jobs. According to one report, 85% of the roles that will exist in 2030 have not yet been invented; by showing the art of the possible and giving organisations the confidence to embrace the latest technological innovations, the Centre will ultimately generate new and exciting roles for the workforce of tomorrow, taking employees away from the production line towards more value-added and creative tasks.

Live technology demonstrations

Spanning over 800m2 of floor space and located just 20 minutes from Spain’s Barcelona International Airport, the Automation Centre showcases the full capabilities of OMRON’s ‘innovative-Automation!’ concept of integrated, interactive and intelligent solutions. This includes a comprehensive portfolio of control, motion, vision, safety and robotics technologies, as well as full global engineering and servicing capabilities. Able to be conducted on site or virtually, demonstrations include:

  1. 360° control for flexible production – how all-in-one control comprising robotics, motion, safety, machine vision and AI boosts manufacturing flexibility, enabling scalable and modular autonomous and collaborative production.
  2. AI sensory inspection – using intelligent AI algorithms to automate tasks previously only possible by humans, thanks to sensing and control technology that flexibly responds to state changes of parts.
  3. Efficient bin picking – combining 3D vision and collaborative integrated robotics to realise bin picking applications.
  4. Safe, automated machine care – using collaborative robots to safely automate the supply and removal of parts, without fencing or remodelling of machine tools.
  5. Human-machine collaboration on a cell production line – robots and humans working together in harmony to enable autonomous process improvement and defect-free production.
  6. Vibration suppression technology – improving and accelerating high-speed liquid product handling with technology that suppresses multiple resonance frequencies.
  7. High-speed and high-precision alignment with visual feedback – ensuring optimal operation without machine adjustments despite belt and chain stretching, chuck misalignment and workpiece deformation.

To arrange a visit, please contact your local OMRON office.