Manufacturers continue to face many of the same challenges: finding skilled workers, increasing production, maintaining quality, and reducing repetitive tasks that can contribute to employee fatigue and injury. Collaborative robots, commonly called cobots, are helping companies address all of these challenges by automating repetitive work while allowing employees to focus on higher-value tasks.
Before becoming part of Airline Hydraulics, the team at Industrial Automation Supply (IAS) worked with manufacturers throughout New England to implement practical automation solutions like collaborative robots. One example is The Dingley Press, a Maine-based commercial printing company that turned to IAS to improve production efficiency while supporting its workforce. Today, that same automation expertise is available through IAS, now a division of Airline Hydraulics.
Here's the story of how IAS helped The Dingley Press bring its cobot vision to life.
Key Takeaways:- Collaborative robots automated repetitive production tasks while allowing employees to focus on higher-value work. - The solution improved production consistency across multiple shifts while increasing throughput. - By reducing repetitive manual work, Dingley Press also helped lower employees' exposure to repetitive motion injuries. |
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Introducing Dingley Press | The Challenge | The Solution | Results | The Bottom Line | Additional Resources
Located in Lisbon, Maine, The Dingley Press has been producing catalogs and direct mail pieces for nearly 100 years. The company prints, assembles, and mails millions of catalogs each year from a single facility.
Competing in a fast-paced industry requires continuous improvement, and Dingley has long embraced automation as a way to improve efficiency throughout its production processes. As the company looked for additional opportunities to streamline operations, it began exploring collaborative robotics with the team at Industrial Automation Supply (IAS).
Like many manufacturers, The Dingley Press was looking for ways to do more with its existing workforce while maintaining consistent production around the clock.
Because the facility operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, maintaining the same level of productivity across multiple shifts is critical. At the same time, repetitive manual tasks can limit employee productivity and increase exposure to repetitive motion injuries.
The company wanted an automation solution that could:
- Improve production consistency across every shift
- Increase throughput
- Reduce repetitive manual work
- Allow employees to focus on more valuable tasks
- Scale as future opportunities for automation were identified
After evaluating Dingley's production process, IAS recommended the Doosan H-Series collaborative robot: the H2017.
To bring the project online, IAS partnered with long-time system integration partner Harris Hill Automation to support programming and system integration. IAS handled the calibration of each cobot, while Dingley Press designed and developed its own proprietary end-of-arm tooling specifically for its application.
The first installation focused on automating repetitive production tasks, including sorting catalog sets for mailing and feeding reams of paper into printing presses.
Rather than committing to a plant-wide deployment immediately, Dingley began with a single cobot. After seeing the results firsthand, the company continued expanding the technology over the following year.
Today, more than a dozen collaborative robots operate throughout the facility.
What began as a single collaborative robot quickly became a key part of The Dingley Press's manufacturing strategy.
By expanding from one installation to more than a dozen cobots, the company improved production consistency across every shift while increasing overall throughput. Employees also spent less time performing repetitive manual tasks, reducing exposure to repetitive motion injuries and allowing them to focus on work requiring greater attention and skill.
"The cobots are doing exactly what we want them to do," said Rex Stickley, Bindery Manager at The Dingley Press.
"One of the things that we see in our industry is changes in productivity with the change of shifts, and we're seeing consistency from shift to shift all day long and all night long. Consistency is very important as the company runs 24 hours per day, seven days per week, and has weekly delivery deadlines."
The results exceeded the company's original expectations.
"We had expectations of what we wanted to see, and I think we've even exceeded them a bit. We're seeing success in areas that tell us that not only can it do that for Dingley, but for all kinds of manufacturing."
The first installation alone demonstrated measurable operational improvements.
"We have reduced crew size and increased throughput with our first cobot. The cobot also reduces our employees' exposure to repetitive motion injuries, which is also a significant improvement in our processes."
As additional cobots were installed throughout the facility, Dingley continued building on those early successes.
Collaborative robots are becoming an increasingly practical automation solution for manufacturers of all sizes. With the $711 million collaborative robot market expected to skyrocket to over $11.8 billion by 2030, manufacturers are quickly adopting these tools to improve productivity, safety, and efficiency.
Rather than replacing employees, cobots are designed to complement the workforce by handling repetitive, physically demanding tasks while allowing skilled workers to focus on activities that require judgment, problem-solving, and quality oversight.
For manufacturers facing labor shortages, increasing production demands, or ergonomic concerns, collaborative robotics can provide a practical path toward greater efficiency without requiring a complete redesign of existing operations.
The success at Dingley Press demonstrates how collaborative robots can improve productivity, increase consistency, and create a better working environment for employees.
While this project was originally completed by Industrial Automation Supply before joining Airline Hydraulics, the same automation specialists continue helping manufacturers throughout New England as part of Airline's expanded automation and controls team.
Whether you're exploring your first cobot application or looking to expand automation across your facility, Airline can help identify practical opportunities to improve production while supporting your workforce.
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