More Often Now, the Best Person for the Job Won't Be a Human : Labor: More businesses are turning to robotics, and GM Fanuc Robotics West is one firm that is benefiting.

By DEAN TAKAHASHI

Nov. 10, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Pete Planchock, general manager of GM Fanuc Robotics West, hopes faded blue jeans won’t go out of style.

That’s because Planchock’s Tustin company, a subsidiary of one of the world’s biggest manufacturers of industrial robots, has developed a customized robot that can spray abrasive chemicals on factory-fresh blue jeans to give them that fashionable well-worn look.

If the fashion stays hot, GM Fanuc Robotics Corp. hopes it will sell lots of robots to the garment industry, Planchock said.

Fading jeans by robot, which can spray the seat and thigh areas of more than 200 pairs per hour, is one of numerous applications that engineers at the local branch of the Auburn Hills, Mich.-based company have dreamed up for robots in their 15,000-square-foot Tustin laboratory.

The subsidiary, formerly a distribution company called Ellison Robotics, was acquired by GM Fanuc in 1989 for an undisclosed price. It employs 17 people, most of them applications engineers.

“We take a standard robot made in Michigan and integrate it into a working system for a manufacturer,” Planchock said.

Planchock said the robots themselves generally cost $40,000 to $200,000, depending on use, but that the systems that must be set up to operate the robots often account for the bulk of a robotic system’s cost. “Sometimes,” he said, “the robot itself only accounts for 10% of the cost of the system.”

Nationally, the cost of robots can start at just under $10,000 each for use in light industry or in a training lab. Robots used in heavy industry to dispense chemicals or spray-paint automobiles, for example, can run $200,000 or more depending on the specific uses, according to Jeff Burnstein of the Robotic Industries Assn. in Ann Arbor, Mich.

According to Fanuc, using robots to fade blue jeans means that the garments can be processed three to five times faster than they could be if workers did them by hand. The company cites that example as one way manufacturers in Orange County can combat the high cost of doing business here.

“It gives companies a reason to stay if they think it is valuable to do business in Southern California,” Planchock said.

Other uses for industrial robots include carving toys out of wooden blocks or fabricating computer disk drives. Stacking boxes on pallets, a job that is a big source of worker’s compensation claims when it’s done manually, is an easy task for a robot.

“We sell competitiveness,” said Eric Mittelstadt, chief executive of GM Fanuc Robotics, a joint venture of General Motors Corp. and Tokyo-based Fanuc Ltd.

Mittelstadt and Planchock acknowledge that the toughest part of making sales is overcoming the unsavory image the robotic industry had during its disastrous beginnings. GM had high expectations for gains in productivity and competitiveness when it put robots in its plants in the 1970s. The robots did not meet GM’s expectations, however, and as a result, other factories have hesitated to invest in industrial robots.

“Dozens of robot companies have failed in the past decade,” said Richard Miller, president of the market research firm Future Technology Surveys in Lilburn, Ga. “It’s not as much in the public eye anymore, but robotics is still a growth industry, and the non-automotive industrial applications are limited only by the imagination.”

Mittelstadt says despite the slow start, more companies are seeing the benefits of robotics.

For instance, in Southern California, aerospace companies have purchased perhaps $10 million worth of painting robots because they are able to lay down coats of paint precisely and without creating unnecessary fumes that can hurt air quality, he said.

In addition, improved software has made it easier for robots to be customized and operated by workers.

Planchock said the blue-jean robot, which is being used by an unidentified manufacturer in Texas, took only five months to develop and that an operator can learn to use it in a day.

The blue-jean-fading robot has piqued the interest of David Warren, president of Jordache Enterprises Inc. in New York.

“We’re looking into” robots, he said. “The sand-blasted or worn look is coming back in Europe, and it will probably be big next year in the United States. But we haven’t looked into this enough to make a comment.”

Industrial robots cost a third to half as much today as they did in 1982, when GM Fanuc Robotics was founded, thanks to the falling cost of the computer hardware that controls robots, Mittelstadt said.

In the early years, GM Fanuc’s sales were mostly to General Motors Corp. and other auto makers. Now, however, Mittelstadt said, robot systems for non-automotive uses account for 40% to 50% of the company’s sales, which were $223 million for 1990.

Miller estimates that annual sales are $500 million for the industry as a whole in the United States. It is estimated that besides GM Fanuc, there are between 25 and 50 other companies selling robots in this country.

Mittelstadt points to several Orange County examples in talking about the spread of robotic technology. At Steelcase Inc., a furniture maker in Tustin, GM Fanuc robots weld chair parts together. The quality of the robots’ welding is better and the work is done faster than a human being could do it manually, said Michael Reed, Steelcase plant manager.

Despite the promise of industrial robots, Mittelstadt said he believes that their being used in other applications--such as for personal servants--will grow slowly.

“We’re going to stay in businesses that we know best,” he said. “The business graveyard is full of companies that diversified into areas they didn’t know.”

Times researcher Dallas M. Jackson contributed to this story.

Robots in Industry

The United States is second only to Japan in the number of robots used by industry, but it ranks fifth in terms of robots per 10,000 production workers, trailing Japan, Sweden, Germany and Italy.

Robot Population

U.S. industry is adding about 4,000 robots each year to the installed industrial base.

In thousands

1982: 6.3

1983: 9.0

1984: 14.5

1985: 20.0

1986: 25.0

1987: 29.0

1988: 33.0

1989: 36.0

1990: 40.0