IDEA
In May 2014, a tech genius Anil Bhirgunde, COO of Tal
Manufacturing Solutions made a swift pitch on the TATA's robotic rove to
company's chairman, Ravikant and to the board of directors. Bhirgunde during
his presentation highlighted the potential of the robot to be a few hundred
units per annum to which Ravikant joked "You have missed out on some
zeroes, go find them and come," putting much needed emphasis on company's
eye for automation.
DEVELOPMENT
To give birth to this high-tech and future driven robot in
house, a team of six engineers whose average age is 24 years was organized,
with Mr. Bhirgunde himself heading the team. The development cost for the
entire project is estimated 10 crore. " These are made in India,
made for India. The idea is to drive automation in the market by offering
affordable and cost-effective solution," says Bhingurde.
The designing of the robot
was done in-house by six-engineers at TAL, the styling part was carried
out at TATA Elxsi, the manufacturing of some parts at TATA AutoComp, while the
entire project was funded by TATA finance.
INDUSTRY
SIZE AND MARKET
The purpose behind staring this project wasn't to compete
with market biggies like Fanuc, ABB and Kuka's, but it intends to target the micro,
small and medium enterprises with an economical robotic solution ranging from
Rs. 3 lakh for 2 kg to Rs. 6 lakh for 10 kg playload. Every year there are
almost 5,000 products being manufactured by India's small enterprises -from
traditional business to high-tech products and such activities need robots to
make work easier and much quicker. It is believed that the 9-lakh crore MSME
industry is likely to grow 2 fold in the upcoming years, and for such expansion
in this sector automation will play a pivotal role.
Apparently
there is a market of approximately 1,000 robots a year in India according to International Federation of Robotics. It
is presumed that the market will grow to 5,000 robots globally. Thanks to the creation
of new beginning point, the market is likely to grow 10 times in 5 years to
15,000, says Bhingurde.
TAL Manufacturing Solutions, a Tata Enterprise,
is a 100% subsidiary of Tata Motors. Telco Automation Limited (TAL) was formed
in 2000 by merging two sub entities of Tata Motors -machine tools and growth.
EUROPE
LICENSE
After capturing the Indian MSME market the company is all set
to spread its wings over the European market. TAL BRABO now conforms to
essential requirements relevant to European health, safety and environmental
legislation, allowing export of the TAL BRABO Robot to customers in Europe.
TAL confirms that BRABO can be used to carry out
simple to complex tasks from raw material handling, until packaging of finished
product and can be programmed to operate 24/7 in all circumstances, for incessant
production, with a high degree of flexibility and even perform highly
complicated functions cost effectively. The BRABO can be used for varied applications
for tasks like pick & deposit of materials, stocking of parts, machine
& press tending, as a sealing application, camera and vision based jobs
etc. The BRABO can also work steadily with human workforce by taking over dull, dangerous
and monotonous jobs.
LAUNCH
On 11th April 2017, TATA launched its BROBO robot in two
variants, priced between Rs 5lakh and 7 lakh with payloads 2 kilos and 10 kilos
respectively.
The article is created under the expert guidance of BP Auto Spares India experts, largest Exporter of Tata Parts in India delivering TATA 1318 Spare Parts and exporting parts across countries.