Page 27 - BusinessWest September 1, 2025

The robots can also be “set up for
vision,” as he explained by using a set
of multi-colored dice, which the arm
can sort.
“Let’s say I want all the blue colors
to be picked up. Well, it’ll roll them
until it sees a blue color, and then it’ll
pick it up and put the blue over here.
That’s to show that, in the world of
automation, there are times where
random parts are coming down a con-
veyor, and I need to pick those random
parts up. That illustrates to a customer
that we can do vision-guided robot-
ics. There are industries that would
support.”
Whatever the capability, Holmberg
This FANUC
robotic arm
is set up to
demonstrate
its capabilities
for an Elm
Electrical client
that makes
wine racks.
grams, tests, and demonstrates robotic
equipment in a growing automation
division that serves clients in a num-
ber of fields.
Elm Electrical’s journey into auto-
mation was gradual, he explained, as
the company originally specialized in
electrical contracting and eventually
moved into programmable logic con-
troller (PLC) systems, which automate
and control electromechanical pro-
cesses, becoming a Rockwell Automa-
tion integrator.
“We integrated their product,
and we use their product to develop
solutions. And over the years, we’ve
morphed into supporting different
market segments, whether it’s water
or wastewater, food and beverage,
machining, material handling. And as
automation started to grow, we started
to get involved in robotics,” Holmberg
explained.
To that end, Elm is an authorized
FANUC robotics integrator, partnering
with FANUC, a global leader in robot-
ics and automation products.
“They make the robotic arms —
that’s an arm that’s programmed to
pick and place and move things. So
we essentially procure robotic arms
from them, and then we integrate
them. We do the programming, and
we come up with the end-of-arm tool,
which is like the robot’s hand. We
develop that solution, and then we
teach the robot to do whatever task it
needs to do.”
One arm on display was being used
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to nail together components of a wine
rack. “The wood gets put down in this
fixture, and now the robot holding
the nail gun can go and build this for
Communication Technology Communication Technology
them,” Holmberg said. “And so you
can rotate this on a table, rotate the
next one in, build the next one. That
frees the operator up from doing this
tedious task all day to focus on quality
control or doing some other portion of
the business — more high-value tasks.”
Behind the Scenes
Holmberg noted that he brings that
arm to trade shows to demonstrate
opportunities for robotics.
“Behind the scenes, there’s a con-
troller, which is essentially a computer
that’s controlling that robot, telling it
what to do,” he said, pointing out the
physical capabilities of the arm and
potential tools that can be attached
to it. “There’s a motor in each one of
those, and it can move in six different
directions — it can spin, or it can move
forward and backward. And those lit-
tle motors have to be controlled.
“So we build control panels to
hold all those controls, and we give
the operator a touchscreen interface
to make it easier to operate. Behind
the scenes, here at Elm, we wire this;
we put in all the technology to make
that robot run. We design the control
panel, we’ll connect it to the robot,
then our engineers will program it to
make it work.”
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