A Cookbook Approach to Robotics and Automation Justification

A "how to" approach for economic justification of robot and automation systems is presented in a step by step manner. Direct cost savings areas are identified and quantified, and methods for quantifying indirect savings areas such as inventory savings, material handling, eliminated operations, reduced scrap and rework, operator training, and efficiency improvements are detailed. The step-by-step sequence leads the reader through the methods and calculations. After the numbers are generated, the reader is shown how to organize data, interpret it, and compute the return on investment (ROI) and the payback, using discounted cash flow methods.