Comau: Supporting Sustainability on Multiple Fronts

Summary

Comau, a member of Stellantis, has a long and successful history in the automotive industry. It began as the COnsorzio MAcchine Utensili in 1973, formed by several Torino, Italy based small companies that were providing machinery to the Fiat Group. Comau is now a worldwide leader in delivering advanced industrial automation products and systems. Comau was back at the Automate Show in Chicago this May showcasing its portfolio of sustainable, advanced automation solutions.

Automation.com had the pleasure of meeting with Comau CEO Pietro Gorlier. He talked to me about sustainable automation, diversifying to support alternative energy, and the work of incorporating sustainability into complex global supply chains. I also got a tour of the products and solutions Comau is delivering as they celebrated their 50^th year of industrial automation last year.

“Sustainability is complex. In my view it's an umbrella on top of things. And some of the things that we do to support sustainability are not necessarily reflected in our specific KPIs (key performance indicators), said Gorlier. “That is only one factor. But there are really three aspects to sustainability within Comau.”  

Gorlier said that last year Comau participated in a rating promoted by the platform EcoVadis, with regard to the path that the Company is pursuing. EcoVadis' aim is discussing how to achieve Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) goals with a specific focus along the entire supply chain, among other actions. He said Comau is committed to “developing and delivering advanced technological solutions made with ever more efficient processes.”

This can be done in part with digital technologies, which enable simulation before activities take place, as well as the monitoring of ongoing activities. According to a report from the recent event in which the company participated with EcoVadis, this strategy and operating mode during the period 2021–2023 enabled the company to exploit 44% of energy from renewable sources in its processes, resulting in a reduction of 33% in its CO₂ emissions.

Comau is committed to managing its supply chain worldwide, in a transparent and responsible manner, and improving its operations to achieve the stated goals of the Net-Zero strategy promoted by the European Union, said Gorlier.

Comau’s next important contribution to sustainability involves diversifying to produce products and processes that support sustainability, such electric vehicles and renewable energy. “Comau is 50+ years in the automotive industry and, until five years ago, 100% of our business was simply building automation solutions for cars that had a combustion engine. Today, roughly 35% of our business is related to the processes connected with electric and hybrid vehicles. That includes things like wire harnesses for electric engines, or batteries and battery recycling,” said Gorlier.

NIO, a Chinese multinational automobile manufacturer, for example, began developing its proprietary electric drive systems in 2015 and is now manufacturing them on a large scale. Comau was asked to apply its expertise to the assembly of NIO’s next-generation electric drive systems (EDS). In 2023, Comau deployed three EDS production lines, including e-motor assembly lines, gearbox and inverter assembly lines, and EOL (End of Line) testing. The advanced turnkey solution incorporates various automated techniques, such as 3D vision-guided robots, AGVs for autonomous material supply and automatic tool-end loading. 

Comau also designed and developed high-speed, automated assembly lines for HYCET, a wholly owned subsidiary of Great Wall Motor, that makes the L.E.M.O.N. Dedicated Hybrid Transmission (DHT) system. The DHT assembly project featured a total of six production lines including the e-motor assembly lines, the gear and shaft assembly lines, the main assembly lines and the assembly test lines.

Comau also boosted e-battery production for the innovative e-transport solutions developed by Leclanché by automating complex manual operations in the manufacturing line of Leclanché’s lithium-ion battery modules. 

Green energy manufacturing

Comau also has expanded into the automated building and installation of solar panel farms. In 2023, Comau debuts its patented Hyperflex mobile factory, a new paradigm in solar blade deployment that facilitates faster photovoltaic plant construction for a time-to-market savings of up to 25% on new installations.

Designed in-house and featuring proprietary Comau robotics, lifting equipment and other technology enablers, Hyperflex automatically assembles the entire solar blade, which can measure up to 48m2, directly in the photovoltaic field. In doing so, the temporary mobile factory lowers overall operating costs while granting better operator well-being, process quality and overall productivity when expanding an existing plant or installing a new one. Furthermore, Hyperflex’s flexible design can accommodate different types of trackers and panels, allowing it to easily adapt to the specific needs of different energy providers.

With Hyperflex, Comau has collapsed the traditional manufacturing and installation process into an efficient on-site procedure that manufactures the torque tube, transversal beam and PV module in a single, robotized production station. Through an optimized mix of manual and automated processes in which human operators work safely alongside the robot thanks to advanced laser scanning techniques, HyperFlex supports green energy production while improving the working conditions of the operators. With an installation rate of up to 30% more modules per hour per operator compared to standard processes, Hyperflex also facilitates faster time-to-market for new plants of up to 25% with an average price per panel savings of 35%.

Using similar design-for-manufacturing techniques, Comau automates traditionally manual manufacturing processes for hydrogen facilities as well. Comau engineers employ a synergistic method of designing the manufacturing process in tandem with the product itself. “From start to finish, we help customers evaluate opportunities, automate key processes and upskill their workforce,” said Gorlier.

By integrating its advanced technology and automation expertise to manage the assembly and production of fuel cells and electrolyzers, Comau is helping companies scale-up production volumes. More importantly, its field proven solutions ensure absolute quality and full traceability throughout the high-precision manufacturing process, said Gorlier.
 

Tracking sustainability

Diversifying into more sustainable product lines is not the same as ensuring that the work you do is sustainable. You do that by, for example, implementing KPIs that reduce energy use or manage carbon emissions. Following the EcoVadis evaluation mentioned earlier, Comau was able to take the actions necessary to achieve its environmental, sustainability and governance (ESG) objectives. Tracking also helps Comau encourage its partners to do the same.

Comau’s ESG strategy aims to direct current and future suppliers towards the use of a common evaluation platform so that processes and analyses can be optimized, and the entire value chain can achieve satisfactory sustainability goals. Today, 20% of orders globally are already covered by suppliers evaluated with EcoVadis, said Gorlier, and the intention is to increase this to facilitate increasingly sustainable management of the entire industrial system.

“We are improving the way in which we track our suppliers, but another goal that I think is very intriguing is how we look at our solutions in a different way,” said Gorlier. “Until now, when you deliver a project, your main target has always been cost, reliability, quality. But soon I want us to be proficient at evaluating how our solution can provide an advantage in terms of sustainability to our customers. Are we able to build solutions that use less energy than in the past? Are we able to build solutions that use a smaller footprint, which it means it also can be more sustainable? And, by the way, also less expensive? Are we able to build the solutions that are also making the task use less material and create less waste?” This is the third important aspect of sustainability, he said.

It is not an easy process for automotive companies, Gorlier said, because they have previously focused on the stronger, the largest and the most durable solution. So, we are trying to classify and evaluate all our solutions regarding how they can be done in this new, more sustainable way. We need to do this for ourselves and for our customers because our customers need to have their sustainability goals met, too.”

Comau products on display

The S-Robot Family of water- and dust-resistant compact welding and handling robots made their worldwide debut at Automate. These high-speed, energy efficient, 6-axis articulated robots are specifically designed for arc welding and handling applications where accuracy, repeatability and speed are essential. They have payloads ranging from 13 kg to 18 kg and an IP68 hollow-wrist design, with integrated arc and gigabit dressings.

“They are perfect for a wide range of arc welding, handling, food & beverage and general assembly applications, in addition to foundry, automotive, and battery manufacturing processes,” said Gorlier. The compact and versatile S-Robots helped Comau return to its historical red robot roots and were featured in a demonstration cell showcasing an arc welding application.

Elsewhere in the booth, Comau presented an automated product sorting and picking system featuring MI.RA/OnePicker, which can automatically detect and distinguish between randomly placed items.
A third demo cell with a Racer-3 robot identified objects in multiple frames to perform palletizing, color sorting and depalletizing through the use of the Unified Robot Control Library and Emulate3D from Rockwell Automation. This confirmed the strong relationship between the companies.

Comau’s MATE-XT and MATE-XB upper and lower body exoskeletons were also on display. Aligned with Comau’s commitment to help workers in their daily tasks and companies in their sustainability goals, the exoskeletons are designed to assist the wearer during lifting, bending and repetitive tasks by offering muscular relief and less perceived effort. They can also help individuals who, without the proper assistance, may be excluded from certain types of work.

Advanced robot control

Comau Open Controller, which was nominated for an Automate Innovation Award, is advanced proprietary robot control software that enables external PCs to control Comau robots. Thanks to its advanced technology, users easily switch between different modes. Switching from one operative mode to another no longer requires turning off the motors—a feature that can significantly improve robot performance and overall productivity.

Comau noted its longstanding collaboration as an industry and innovation partner with Intrinsic, an Alphabet company and Google moonshot, is working to make the next generation of robotics significantly more accessible for companies of all sizes and across all industries. Indeed, the two companies showed the joint solutions within their respective booths at Automate.

Intrinsic Flowstate is an all-in-one developer environment for building production-grade automation solutions from design through to deployment. Users build with intelligent, AI-enabled “capabilities” and integrate them using “skills,” which define a particular automation behavior, such as moving a robot or grasping an object.
Automate attendees were buzzing about leveraging their existing robot operating system (ROS) code in new ways with Intrinsic and Jazzy Jalisco, the latest ROS 2 release. Developers can get started by reviewing the release notes.

The Jazzy Jalisco open-source robot development environment, which will be supported until 2029, gains support for the Zenoh protocol, enabling connectivity between existing ROS code and the Intrinsic platform. This should enable robust communication between the platform and the tools that ROS developers are already familiar with, such as RViz.

An Intrinsic spokesman said that, unlike personal computers or smartphones, “robots are still out of reach and impractical for millions who could benefit from them. Robots should be radically easier to program, use and innovate with.”

That notion goes well with Comau’s plans as well.