I have spent more time preparing pouches for our UR5e trial than I expected to spend on the whole exercise. The robot transfers a presented bag into a tray neatly, but each change in fill or pouch shape has needed another insert or adjustment.
Yesterday I caught myself moving the least cooperative bags to one side so I could finish a demonstration. I put them back, but it was an uncomfortable moment. I was protecting the demonstration rather than learning whether the process suited our work.
My team has been patient. I would like to discuss stopping the mixed-product trial without making everyone feel the effort was wasted. Has anyone had that conversation successfully?
The transfer works, and I am still arranging every bag
AdaAdams0129 · 12 May 2025, 04:17 UTC
18 replies
Replying to AdaAdams0129
What would you lose by stopping the mixed-product work and keeping the best-defined case for review? There may be a useful application in there, but the demonstration should not depend on you selecting cooperative bags.
10pointsReplying to ThomasBrooks0799
Mostly I would lose the broad claim I made at the start. The equipment is borrowed for the trial. We have not committed to buying it.
8pointsReplying to AdaAdams0129
Then you still have a fairly inexpensive exit.
18pointsReplying to ThomasBrooks0799
Yes. The expensive part so far has been my time, and I think I have been trying to justify it by promising that one more insert will finish the job.
19pointsReplying to AdaAdams0129
Our packing trial became one colleague's personal shift. Everyone called it automatic because the arm moved by itself. He arranged every awkward pack before it got there, stayed late to change the guides and came in on his day off when a different pack arrived. He finally took a week away and we packed manually. That gave us the comparison we'd been avoiding. We kept one repetitive order on the cell later, but stopped pretending the rest belonged there. Your team may be waiting for you to say what they've already noticed.
12pointsReplying to LeahAli0234
Ada, have your operators had a chance to describe the preparation work in their own words?
14pointsReplying to AdaAdams0129
Tell them about putting the awkward bags aside. Honestly. That moment says more than another polished transfer video.
11pointsReplying to SofiaArcher0369
I did this morning. Our supervisor said she wondered where those bags had gone. She was kind about it, which was worse for about ten seconds and then a relief.
18pointsReplying to ThomasBrooks0799
The operators want the bench space back for mixed orders. They are willing to help assess one repeat product, provided the changeover does not depend on me being there.
10pointsReplying to AdaAdams0129
Price that one product as a whole order, including getting the bench ready and clearing it afterwards. You already know the transfer can look good. The next trial should tell you whether the complete job is worth keeping.
2pointsReplying to AdaAdams0129
Which repeat product do they mean?
10pointsReplying to ThomasBrooks0799
And please pick it for repeatability, not because it owes you a nice result.
8pointsReplying to ThomasBrooks0799
A regular pouch with a consistent fill and the same supplied shape. It still has occasional badly presented bags, and those will stay in the sample set. We have agreed to stop the other variants now.
4pointsReplying to AdaAdams0129
Who's going to set that repeat job up?
24pointsReplying to LeahAli0234
One packer, with the trial lead supervising and my notes available. I will attend the first walkthrough, then let them identify the bits the notes fail to explain.
14pointsReplying to AdaAdams0129
Let them finish a sentence before you help. I mean that kindly. It's horribly tempting to fix every snag before somebody can show you what confused them.
23pointsReplying to LeahAli0234
The desk walkthrough found two setup choices I had never written down. We have added those and arranged the supervised trial. No result for the repeat product yet. The mixed orders are back on the manual bench.
4pointsReplying to AdaAdams0129
That gives you a smaller question to answer. I would be interested in the packer's view after the trial, particularly how much help they needed after the initial setup.
17pointsDiscussion closed
This discussion is closed to new replies after six months without activity. Last activity: .