Combining the collaborative robot business promoted by our company with the strengths (now former) Squse holds in the food manufacturing field

has made a wide range of system integrations possible for food factories overall.

  • Background of business takeover
    Specific circumstances in the food product manufacturing field
    became obstacles for the collaborative robot business

    Since we started our robot business in 2017, IDEC Factory Solutions has been promoting proposals for solutions using collaborative robots in the food product manufacturing field as well.
    However, in the food product manufacturing field, unique know-how is required due to peculiarities,* and there are many cases where although we have talked about introducing systems, it was not done.

    * Special circumstances unique to food factories
    ・ Food factories produce various products in a small space.
    ・ It is difficult to thoroughly teach occupational safety skills because they actively hire workers from overseas.
    ・ Factory environments where production is busy and goods are moving frequently
    ・ Risk assessments of cases of relying on collaborative robots are limited
    ・ Flexible choices are needed not only to protect people but also to protect equipment
     (Purposely installing a safety fence, not using collaborative robots, etc.)

Possibilities that come with business takeover
Eliminating human resources and know-how shortages by taking over Squse

Above all, the biggest issue for us was the lack of human resources who could see the food products field from a bird's-eye view. At that time, talk of taking over business from Squse Inc. emerged.
Squse Inc.’s main business was consulting on improvements in the food products manufacturing field, and it had abundant achievements in consulting on improvements and systems delivery in the food products field that could help fix our shortage of human resources, which was our problem.
Thus, in May 2021, we officially added their business into IDEC Factory Solutions.

About Squse at the time we overtook them

● Had a wide range of achievements in the food product field
  • Lidding robot ・ ・ ・ 47 cells
    Transport equipment ・ ・ ・ 37 units
    Automatic transport: 50 units

● Examples of improvement consulting by Squse(Focused on proposals with the ideology of seeing the forest instead of the trees)
1A bird's-eye view of the production line
  • Mechanism that can be multi-skilled

  • Collection of defective (NG) products in each process

  • State management of each process

Consulting and proposal for

2A bird's-eye view of the processes
3A bird's-eye view of the factory
  • Implemented definitions of requirements for smart factories from simple diagnoses

  • Automation consulting or equipment development

  • Proposals that do not focus on utilizing robots

Proposal to view the above from a bird’s-eye view and optimize it