Many industries from all over the world are now using cobots to boost their productivity and make their working spaces safer for humans. Among the different industries using cobots are the health industry. Cobots in the health industry are used in the most intricate surgery procedures like heart surgeries, hip replacements and organ transplants. They are also used as training tools and helping aids. Among the many health institutions that have taken the use of cobots a notch higher is Aurolab.
Aurolab is a non-profit making organisation and a major part of the larger Aravind Eye Care Systems. It is based in India and produces cataracts and intraocular lenses which find their way in many countries all over the world. The organisation’s eye cataract kits help people regain back their sights after successful cataract surgeries and the intraocular lenses that help people to regain back their sights especially after eye surgeries. In partnership with universal robots, Aurolab has seen a massive increase in their eye cataract kits production after taking the initiative of using cobots for all their production work. Aurolab opted for cobots from universal robots because they are highly acclaimed, safe, affordable and reliable.
From blindness to sight. The Aurolab story
From world health statistics, there about 45 million people in the world that are blind today. Out of these, about 4 million of them have cataracts. 75% of all cataract cases are preventable and the hope to get this done lies with several places. One of those places is Aurolab. According to Dr. R.D. Sirram when the lab was given the opportunity to produce cataract lenses, importing the parts needed to India was too expensive. The parts were exorbitantly sold, and the lab needed to find cheaper ways of producing the cataracts. They then joined forces with universal robots and started off with one UR5 robotic arm before later increasing the number to seven robotic arms.
The reasons behind going for the arms from universal robots was because of their safety and flexibility. Cataract making is a very delicate process and time consuming. The cobots can handle the delicate parts very well without any damages and without interfering with the workers. Using the cobots also brought about other benefits to the organisation. Production rose to 10,000 cataracts in one day and 2,000,000 cataracts per year. This has made a big impact to eye units all across the world because they are now able to import more than they did before and save sights.
With the use of cobots, the organisation has been able to empower more women to find work in the organisation and enrol more interns to learn with them. Cobots are also used as tools to educate high school students about the eyes and how the organisation uses cobots to optimize production.
The cobots come with a safety feature so they cannot harm the people working alongside them. They have no enclosures and move freely to wherever they are programmed to do the work assigned for them. Â They occupy very little space and do not interfere with the goings on in the organisation. the power consumption of the cobots is very low which saves the organisation a lot of overheads. Quality of the cataracts also improved with the use of cobots. Besides achieving a 15% ROI, Aurolab also became a world leader in the supply of cataracts used in cataract surgeries all over the world.
Conclusion
Blindness or poor sight is not anything anyone would want to go through. Cobots are making it easier for people to smile again and see the beauty they were meant to see around them by bringing back their sights. The user friendly cobots are not only flexible but they are safe to use, and they make sure the end products are safe to use too. They are also precise and very accurate and definitely the future for many other innovations.
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