Maintenance shops appear to be the most likely locations for robots in the railroad industry; the few robots that railroads have installed are found in shops, and shop activities such as welding, grinding, cleaning, and painting are well-suited to the use of standard robots. The author identifies and evaluates more than two dozen technically feasible applications of Conrail's Juniata locomotive rebuilding shop to determine the extent of such applications. Fewer than half of the applications considered showed financial merit, primarily because of the high investment cost and the low potential for labor savings. The application of robotics technology was found to have only a limited potential for improving the productivity of modern railroad shops. It is concluded that as the state of the art advances, more applications will be both technically and economically attractive, but the impact on railroad maintenance will likely remain modest until equipment is redesigned to be maintained with simple, inexpensive robots.
Analysis of the potential impacts of automation and robotics on locomotive rebuilding
Analyse der Automatisierung und der Robotertechnologie beim Umbau von Lokomotiven
IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management ; EM-34 , 2 ; 92-100
1987
9 Seiten, 46 Quellen
Article (Journal)
English
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