A wide range of engineering industry solutions will be featured at the 27th International Specialised Exhibition of Manufacturing, Innovations and Engineering Solutions – Balttechnika in May 2019 – organisers are presenting the anticipated innovations and inviting participants to register: representatives of business, industry, and science, Balttechinka wrote in a press release.
For the first time in the Baltic states: state-of-the-art cutting machine
Karmiteka, the industrial plant installation, maintenance and training company operating in Vilnius District, is the first of the Baltic states to present to the market a laser cutting machine with efficiency that surprises even experienced processing specialists.
‘It’s a Fibre-type laser machine from the manufacturer Kimla, designed for metal cutting. It cuts metal bars of various widths with ease – much quicker than a kitchen knife cuts though butter! Such machines have not yet been introduced to the Baltic market, and visitors to the Balttechnika 2019 exhibition will be the first ones to get acquainted with its operation this May,’ the Head of Kamiteka, Ivan Savickij, claims.
However, this unit requires almost 50 square metres of space; the machine itself occupying as much as 40 square metres is of an impressive scale.
‘The machine can cut extremely sizeable metal bars – 3x12m. The production of the unit takes 4 months while the on-site installation requires 3 or 4 working days and involves special equipment. The machine has the highest cutting speed, 6G, and so far it’s the maximum acceleration an installation like that can reach across the market,’ Savickij says.
According to Savickij, no analogues are currently available on the Lithuanian market.
‘A company in Kaunas uses a machine with similar operation, but it’s a much older model, installed a number of years ago. The ones we will be presenting are much more powerful and increase the work efficiency by dozens or perhaps hundreds of times,’ the Head of Kamiteka claims.
New generation cobots
If most people have at least a vague idea of what robots look like, the term ‘cobot’ is still relatively new on the market. Cobots are devices that are capable of working alongside humans, without any control.
The famous Swedish engineering company Fanuc Nordic has developed a new generation cobot, CR-15iA, that has spatial sensors. Lithuanians will have a chance to get acquainted with its possibilities, and the presentation is expected to garner a great deal of attention from industry representatives at the Balttechnika 2019 exhibition.
‘It senses when someone enters a room and has a built-in vision technique in its ‘hands’, which enables the robot to collect the smallest of objects: nails, screws, etc. People can safely work alongside such a robot; for instance, a cobot can hold an object in its hands while the person attaches an additional part, label, etc. to it. There is no need to keep a large distance or wear safety clothes,’ the General Manager of Fanuc Nordic, Serold Anderson, says.
Automation – recovery of business from cheap labour force countries
According to Anderson, there is currently a sense in the market of Northern countries and Western Europe that even the smallest businesses are seeking to automate processes.
‘Perhaps it is only natural – for countries with richer economies, the cobot technology helps bring back various production processes to one’s country as this technology significantly reduces production costs,’ Anderson explains.
Automated processes in Northern and Western Europe, where employees receive higher salaries, are cheaper than those performed manually.
‘This helps bring back and carry out in one’s country some of the work that was once moved to countries with smaller salaries for cost reasons,’ the Head of Fanuc Nordic says.
Lithuania is rich with engineering pioneers
Even though the discussions on cobots in Lithuania are still rather tentative, according to Kęstutis Šetkus, the Director of the Agency for Science, Innovation and Technology (ASIT), our country’s companies distinguish themselves across the market by their engineering solutions and methods. The country’s innovation ecosystem is bearing impressive fruit – Lithuanians have something to show for it in various fields from medicine to transport.
‘There are numerous concrete examples to be found. For instance, Evana Technologies has mastered a micro-drilling laser technology for plastics, which is applied in medicine. Idėja 3D has a special casting technology, which is extremely relevant to start-ups that often have to present prototypes of their products, as well as industrial companies. The transport management and control system developed by Baltic Car Equipment is used not just by Lithuanian but also foreign businesses. Rubedo Sistemos is developing a stereo camera for robotic navigation,’ Šetkus elaborates.
The inventions by these companies, relevant to representatives of the business, scientific, and engineering worlds, will be featured at the Balttechnika exhibition, which will take place in May 2019. During the event, ASIT and the State Patent Bureau of the Republic of Lithuania will be providing free consultations to interested entrepreneurs.
‘We will be paying special attention to the international Eurostars, Horizon 2020 and national InoCheques and InoStart investment programmes, while the specialists from the State Patent Bureau of the Republic of Lithuania will be advising on matters relating to legalisation of protection of objects of industrial property, such as patents of innovations, trademarks, designs, and topographies of semiconductor products. For businesses, registration for these meetings will start on 1 March,’ the Director of ASIT explains.