50 Years of Expertise: The RoboLive® Story

If you’re a tech-forward manufacturing professional working with industrial robots, you probably already know what RoboLive® can do for you. Whether you’re a manufacturer or system integrator, a plant manager or a robot programmer, RoboLive® offers tools and insights that help you take control of your industrial robots. But here’s something you might not know: These features combat the exact issues manufacturing automation pros face, because they were developed from years of manufacturing automation experience.

RoboLive® was created by a team of engineers from Dressler Automation, an international leader in electrical engineering for automotive manufacturers. Founded over 50 years ago in Germany, Dressler Automation began in the then-developing field of early robotics and electronic boxes. Over the years, the firm’s reputation and client base spread, with a team setting up the company’s first US office in the vibrant automotive manufacturing hub of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Automotive manufacturers and their suppliers are well established in the area, with the largest producing over 250,000 vehicles annually.

Dressler Automation’s Chattanooga team tackled big projects in commissioning and industrial maintenance but the rising tide of Factory 4.0 began to pose new challenges that the manufacturing industry was unprepared to face. How do staff keep track of the massive amounts of production data generated each day? When a bad part is produced, how can engineers quickly determine where and when the error occurred? Visualization tools exist for other parts of the factory, but what about programming data like weld or glue parameters? These are all challenges that the RoboLive® software now addresses—but at the time, no such solution existed. It was up to Dressler Automation to invent the next phase of the robotic revolution.

RoboLive® combines several key features—path calibration, base frame correction, documentation, and more—around a base of process visualization to give you the most complete look into your robotic production lines possible. The software automatically retrieves actual process data from your robots at regular intervals and displays it alongside planned instructions and part CAD models. Code rules, specifications, and specific standards are factored in, meaning you can see any issues or deviations instantly. A robust set of analysis tools and custom warnings provide a clear look into errors and information that otherwise would be impossible to visualize.

RoboLive® was originally developed and deployed on the factory lines in Chattanooga, and that’s where we first proved the software’s value. With all production information viewable in 3D at a glance, downtimes decreased and specialized personnel were no longer necessary for understanding data. RoboLive® allowed staff to identify and correct issues before bad parts were produced, leading to a reduction in scrap costs and decreased potential for recall.

The function of a completely new solution like RoboLive® was clear immediately—as was the need to share it with other manufacturers. The dedicated RoboLive® software team at Dressler Automation was created and began to refine the software into a versatile toolkit for maintenance managers, QA, and plant management alike. Working with manufacturers from a variety of industries and countries, RoboLive® has become a critical part of the production process at some of the largest plants in the world.

Whatever manufacturing challenges you’re facing—complex variants, unique processes, or specific standards—RoboLive® offers a solution. Our software is custom tailored to each facility’s needs, and we develop lasting relationships with our clients to ensure you’re making the most of your industrial robots. Reach out today for a free custom consultation, or submit a contact form for information on how to request a trial or pilot project.

Powering Predictive Maintenance with RoboLive®

Predictive maintenance relies on data: Having it, using it, and understanding it. Modern automated lines generate huge amounts of production data each shift, but little of that data is processed or utilized by maintenance engineers; Some programs track technical information such as robot temperature and physical condition, but so far no solution has offered on-site insights into process data.

Inaccurate processes data corresponds to inaccurate results in tasks like welding and gluing, and can lead to recall-worthy issues like missed welds. RoboLive® visualizes trends, changes, and deviations in nominal instructions and actual results—helping you catch issues before they result in costly problems.

Process Visualization is the core of RoboLive®: Integrating your own product standards and recording data directly from the production robots themselves, the program visualizes your products with both nominal and actual process data in place. Warnings are produced when there’s an error such as a misnamed process, improperly applied base frame, or off location process—all in an intuitive form that can be understood by all staff at a glance. With this critical data at hand, you’ll have a more comprehensive understanding of factory conditions, and be empowered to make intelligent maintenance decisions.

While Process Visualization is one of RoboLive®’s most powerful tools, the solution is capable of much more. RoboLive® automatically creates a historical record of your robot’s nominal and actual process data history. This data can be automatically processed into insightful reports that give you a look into operational details that otherwise would have gone unnoticed. The Actual Coordinate Changes Report, for example, identifies processes that have been repeatedly changed over given time frame, and when the changes took place. Frequent changes to a process could indicate a potential underlying issue with the robot or programming—and it’s information that can’t be readily accessed without RoboLive®.

RoboLive®’s data analysis tools come in another powerful form: the Process Warning Report Dashboard. This report compiles the amount, type, and impact of production warnings in your factory, tracked overtime. Using the Process Warning Report Dashboard, all staff can understand critical trends in your robots’ performance. With an easy way to assign custom impact values, it’s also a way to put a number to specific maintenance tasks and challenges.

The data processing and analysis capabilities of RoboLive® make it a powerful addition to any maintenance engineer’s toolkit. But that’s not all RoboLive® is capable of. The visualization core element can be used in routine production by robot programmers, plant managers, QA teams, and at every step in the manufacturing process. Even during commissioning and handoff, RoboLive® offers a simple way to bridge the gap between simulation and reality.

See RoboLive® in action today with a free consultation or demonstration—just reach out to an expert on our website or LinkedIn. Demo downloads of the RoboLive® client are available on request, and manufacturers are currently welcome to request a custom pilot or installation with custom data for an even closer look at how RoboLive® works.

Factory 4.0 is here. So what?

As Factory 4.0 continues to transform the modern production landscape, manufactures are embracing automation at ever-increasing rates. As of 2023, 88% of welds in an average car are done by a robot, with that number only set to increase as robotics technology allows for more complicated tasks to be automated. But it’s not the only thing that’s on the rise. Vehicle recall is at an all-time high, with 2022 data showing over 1,000 separate recall incidences affecting 13 million units globally—and missing or improper welding is an all-to-common cause. It’s a curious contradiction, and one that has left manufacturing professionals around the world scratching their heads. Embracing automation was supposed help you produce higher quality products with less money spent. So what exactly is going on?

The answer isn’t in found the robots themselves, and nor is it with the engineers. In fact, you might not find it anywhere on the factory floor. It’s missing: Missing data, missing communication channels, missing documentation—and if not kept in check, it can result in production issues like missing welds. As factories employ increasing amounts of robots and automated processes, the amount of data involved in production also increases. Data inevitably gets lost. Existing solutions or in-house workaround for process visualization are rudimentary at best, and there may not adequate documentation available.

Personnel issues can cause similar problems, even as tasks are increasingly diverted to automated solutions. Operations become too complicated even for experienced technicians to understand, leaving critical systems reliant on the knowledge of a handful of experts. Meanwhile, contracted work can result in problems at handover and issues of accountability.

When these issues compound, it leads to real problems on the factory floor. Maintenance becomes more time consuming and expensive, all while production quality decreases. These are problems with tangible consequences. Lose track of weld parameter data, for example, and you may be faced with missing or misplaced welds on finished parts. The numbers add up, with over 20 billion dollars wasted every year on vehicle recall across the industry. The damage to your brand’s reputation is immeasurable—and that’s why we’ve come up with the solution.

RoboLive® is a software solution specially created to help manufactures take control of their industrial robots. With a complete set of modular tools built around a powerful Process Visualization core, RoboLive® combines features like Path Calibration and Vehicle-0 Determination into a convenient source of truth for QA and maintenance operations. Developed with and for some of the largest automotive manufactures in the world, RoboLive® is a tried-and-true solution for the commissioning, analysis, and quality assurance of robotic production processes. And with features like our new Report Dashboard, you can see at a glance just how much RoboLive® is helping you save.

Our team’s driving mission is to help manufacturers embrace and benefit from the changes that Factory 4.0 is bringing to the production landscape. That’s why we created RoboLive®—and why we’re constantly developing, improving, and the software solution that will change the way you interact with your industrial robots. Live demonstrations and custom consultations are available on request, so reach out to our team today and follow our LinkedIn page for latest updates.

See Your Savings with the RoboLive® Report Dashboard

RoboLive® is always improving—it’s how we make good on our mission to deliver cutting-edge software solutions that meet the changing needs of modern manufacturing professionals. Our latest improvement introduces a new feature that will help you understand your factory’s performance over time: the Process Warning Report Dashboard.


The Process Warning Report Dashboard provides you with several key statistics compiled onto an easy-to-read chart. RoboLive®’s core features track potential issues naturally: problems like deviations from planned data, missing actual data, or off-location processing. The Report Dashboard plots these warnings and their resolutions over time, so you can view and understand maintenance action at a glance. The data is collected at regular intervals and stored over time, meaning you can see day-by-day changes or look for broader trends in how QA issues in your factory are being addressed.


Warnings are associated with specific potential processing issues, and indicate problems that could lead to costly production errors. By associating an estimated cost-per-warning with each issue type flagged, you’ll be able to receive live data about how QA issues affect your bottom line—and how much RoboLive® is saving. The Dashboard is available directly in RoboLive®’s process visualization element, and provides a host of information in a single click:

Every manufacturer knows that time is money. That’s why we created RoboLive®: a powerful set of tools for manufactures using production robots. RoboLive®’s new Report Dashboard feature joins the existing production timeline, along with Process Visualization and four other elements to help you bridge the gap between simulation and reality. RoboLive® is already a proven solution for improving key statistics like OEE, and the Dashboard offers another way to help you visualize and track the metrics that matter most.

RoboLive® was originally developed as an internal solution for engineers from Dressler Automation, an industry leading firm with over 50 years’ experience in manufacturing excellence. Now RoboLive® is being made available to the public for new partners, and clients are already seeing how much RoboLive® can save: Using our full suite of customizable elements, plus tools like the Report Dashboard, major manufactures can expect to see up to seven-figure savings annually. With our flexible pricing, you could see return-on-investment in as little as one year.

If you’re ready to see the Report Dashboard in action, there’s no need to wait. Demo downloads of the latest version of RoboLive are available now. If you’d prefer a guided experience, live demonstrations and custom consultations with a member of the RoboLive team can be scheduled directly via Calendly.

We’re always on our mission to help manufactures produce the best quality products possible, and we’re always improving RoboLive® with features and updates to help you take control of your industrial robots. We have more development planned for RoboLive® in the future, including the potential for bespoke solutions to suit individual manufacturer needs. To keep on top of how RoboLive® is changing the face of industrial automation, follow our LinkedIn page today.

SOUTHTEC 2023 in Review

The robotic revolution continues to transform the manufacturing landscape of our country, and nowhere is that fact more visible than the South. It’s home to massive manufacturing facilities for some of the nation’s largest automotive producers, and it’s also where our own RoboLive® North America office is located–conveniently settles in Chattanooga, TN to provide support to the town’s major auto producer Volkswagen.

SOUTHTEC 2023 is an event that puts the spotlight on manufacturing professionals in this special region. Held annual in the vibrant town of Greenville, South Carolina, it’s a manufacturing technology trade show that brings together industry leaders in fields from automotive to aviation.

And it’s exactly these kinds of professionals that are benefiting form our software solution RoboLive®. As a one-stop suite of powerful tools, RoboLive® is designed to help you take control of your industrial robots and get up-to-date visual ensigns into your production processes in just a few clicks. Major manufacturers all around the world have already seen how RoboLive® can see them in scrap, recall, and downtime: concrete numbers that move the dial on critical statistics like OEE.

If you want a chance to see RoboLive® for yourself, you don’t need to wait for our next event appearance. Engineers are standing by to provide custom consultations or live demonstrations of the RoboLive® software package—reach out today to schedule a meeting for your team. And if you’d prefer a more hands-on look, demo and trail installations are available, including the recent exclusive demo version specially made for battery manufactures.

Follow RoboLive® on LinkedIn for latest updates.

Building Better Batteries with RoboLive®

Every part on a car must be handled with careful attention to quality, but EV batteries may be one of the most delicate components. As the literal ‘heart’ of the rapidly growing electric vehicle market, batteries demand particular attention in the manufacturing processes. For example, even a tiny leak that lets in water would completely compromise the part, leading to disastrous defects.

For that reason, it’s important keep a close eye on any possible changes to the production process. As with the body, batteries are largely assembled by robotic arms in a long and complex series of operations. It’s often more data than any one person can keep track of, which is where software solutions like RoboLive® come in.

RoboLive® is well established as a tool for automotive manufacturers, but it’s capable of so much more: Battery manufacturers in particular see benefits from features like the change tracking and timeline history. RoboLive®’s timeline gives you a complete overview of every change made to your robot programs, as often as shift to shift. That means you’ll stay on top of any potential issues on your production lines, and can solve them faster than ever.

A battery viewed in RoboLive® Visual

That’s not all RoboLive® can do. Battery manufacturing involves sealing, gluing, welding, and drilling—all complex processes involving countless programming instructions. With RoboLive®, you can visualize paths and process parameters on a 3D model of the part, which gives you powerful insight into what your production robots are doing.

Saving time means saving money, and the benefits RoboLive® brings can add up to over seven figure savings annually on a minimal initial investment. You’ll also see lowered rates of scrap and recall, issues which can have immeasurable costs.

We want you to see for yourself just how powerful RoboLive® is. Right now, we’re offering trial versions of the RoboLive® client software complete with an all-new battery demonstration. You’ll get an up-close look at how RoboLive®’s visualization tools work for battery manufacturers, with

Experience the RoboLive® battery demo today with no obligations by filling out our contact form. If you’d prefer an in-person demonstration of the RoboLive® software solution, you’re in luck: Our team will be appearing next at SOUTHTEC in Greenville SC this October—follow us on LinkedIn for latest updates.

What is OEE, and What Can You Do About It?

Dedication to efficiency is at the heart of any successful manufacturing operation. But for most manufacturers, it’s more than just a mission: In the competitive Factory 4.0 landscape, optimizing the performance of your production robots is a necessity.

So how can you be certain that your factory running at maximum efficiency? You probably already know the key numbers to watch: Downtime, personnel costs, and scrap are some of the signs that your production robots aren’t working the way they should be.

These critical statistics can be compiled together into a number called OEE. As the robotic revolution continues to transform factories into highly precise automated operations, understanding OEE and knowing how to improve it is more important than ever.

WHAT IS OEE?

OEE stands for overall equipment effectiveness, and it’s a vital metric used extensively in manufacturing. Expressed as a percentage of current performance out of best possible performance, the number gauges how efficiently machinery and equipment like production robots are operating by considering three essential factors: Availability, Performance, and Quality.

Availability measures the machine’s uptime, including planned—and unplanned—downtime. Performance assesses how well the machine actually performs compared to its designed programming. And Quality looks at the percentage of defect-free products produced. To calculate OEE, you multiply these three components, yielding a percentage that represents how well your machinery is operating.

Many different factors can lead to subpar OEE. Faulty programming can lead to defective parts that need to be scrapped or reworked, decreasing performance and quality. If you’re faced with a lot of unplanned downtime and have trouble getting production back online quickly, your availability will suffer.

On the factory floor, where time is money, inefficient operations need to be avoided. And in worst case scenarios, compounding issues can lead to recall or accidents—situations with a negative impact that can be impossible to quantify.

While understanding OEE is fairly simple, improving your factory’s productivity metrics is much harder than it sounds. Some problems, like changes that arise during shift changes, can seem unavoidable in a plant with hundreds or even thousands of robots and engineers working at once. Communication poses another challenge: Obscure robotics issues may leave the factory dependent on a single expert, and third party engineers can generate untraceable quality problems. And as more and more production relies on automation, increasing the amount of data and increasing complexity can make finding critical information into a difficult task.

ROBOLIVE®'S IMPACT ON OEE

Our mission is to help manufacturers like you meet the challenges posed by Factory 4.0. As a team engineers and systems integrators with decades of experience, we know exactly what problems modern engineers are facing—and we created our software solution RoboLive® to help.

RoboLive® is a toolset made of multiple elements that work together to help you make the most of your industrial robots. The elements, like Robot Documentation and Path Calibration, provide solutions to common production challenges through robust visualization, documentation, and analysis. Some of RoboLive’s features even offer never before seen ways to address common challenges. Vehicle-0 Determination, for example, provides a fast an easy alternative to laser measurement or complete reteaching when relocating production robots.

RoboLive® combines visualization with a set of other analysis tools to create a powerful one-stop solution.

RoboLive® is integrated into the local network, and automatically retrieves actual process data from your robots as often as every shift. The actual process data alongside nominal (planned) programming on models of your products, letting you find and fix problems before they happen.

Visualization is an increasingly important way to keep track of your factory, and RoboLive® offers a powerful alternative to clunky, outdated existing toolboxes or makeshift inhouse solutions. In RoboLive®, critical information—even complex data like weld and glue parameters—can be easily visualized at a glance by all plant staff. A dynamic timeline tracks the status of the plant, so you can ensure that all changes are documented.

Whether you’re planning to use every element, just a few, or need a bespoke solution, RoboLive® provides the tools you need to combat inefficiency on the factory floor. You’ll make better quality products, and spend less time and money doing it.

The numbers add up. By reducing downtime, decreasing personnel costs, and preventing scrap, your plant can expect to see OEE increased by several percentage points with almost no additional effort. Personnel costs for handling process data, for example, can be reduced by 60% with RoboLive®’s time and effort saving tools. Downtime due to material joining issues can be reduced by 15%, and you can expect a 75% reduction in scrap and rework due to programming errors. Major automotive or components manufacturers like our clients can leverage RoboLive® into seven figure savings potential annually.

It’s a measurable return on a minimal initial digitalization investment. RoboLive® customers can see a return on investment in a few months, and the benefits multiply over time. Whether you’re looking to start big with a plantwide adaptation or want to trial RoboLive® on a single line, our team is ready to meet your needs today and help you scale to a future of success.

At Dressler Automation, we have a passion for helping manufacturers maintain quality automated production lines. Visit our LinkedIn or read on for more stories about how RoboLive® is changing the game at plants all around the world.

When you’re ready, get in touch with our team and find out what we can do for you. Reach out today for a custom quote or consultation, or look for the RoboLive® team at a trade event near you for a live demonstration.

An Inside Look at FABTECH 2023

While nowadays better known for deep-dish pizza and an iconic silver bean, Chicago has a rich history as a manufacturing hub. The city was a key site in the early days of the industrial revolution and, can even trace its roots in production technology as far back as the first assembly lines that would go on to inspire Ford Motor Company to produce the Model-T. Today, many manufacturers still call the historic city home, and the industrial sector in the area supplies over 200,000 jobs. 

Chicago is also home to a world-class manufacturing trade show that’s of particular interest to those in the automotive industry. FABTECH, North America’s largest show for fabrication and welding technology, is held annually in the city for over 40,000 attendees and hundreds of exhibitors.  

RoboLive® is specially designed for manufacturing professionals who work with welding and joining robots, so FABTECH was the perfect place to make our introductions. Using RoboLive®, you can even visualize complex data like weld and glue parameters at a glance, making it easy for you to understand what your robots are doing.  

That’s not all that RoboLive® can do. Combining new analysis tools with powerful visualization and change tracking, RoboLive® lets you take control of your production robots.  Major automotive manufacturers around the world are already finding out what RoboLive® is capable of: by reducing downtime, scrap, & personnel costs, RoboLive® can return seven-figure savings annualy. 

It’s our team’s mission to get this valuable software into the hands every manufacturer that can benefit from it: That’s why we’ve been on the road and making appearances this year at trade shows from Chicago to Hannover. Over the 5 days of FABTECH, we showed the world just how powerful RoboLive® really is—and learned from stakeholders what we can do to continue improving this revolutionary solution.  

If you weren’t able to make it to FABTECH, don’t worry. We’re happy to offer a live demonstration of RoboLive® or a custom consultation at your convenience—just reach out to our team, or schedule directly on Calendly. Your next chance to see RoboLive® in person will be this October, at SOUTHTEC in Greenville, South Carolina: For latest updates, follow us on LinkedIn today.  

Automatica 2023, Munich

This summer is busier than ever for the RoboLive® team, as we travel to trade shows around the world introducing our software solution RoboLive®. Our most recent stop? Automatica 2023 Munich, where we brought our automation expertise to over 20,000 attendees from around the world.

Automatica is held in Munich, Germany with the aim of providing a place to keep up with all the latest developments in the world of robotics. It’s more than just a big deal: it’s one of the biggest automation trade events around. This year, the RoboLive® team exhibited as part of the Smart Maintenance Pavilion, an exclusive subsection that gathered together some of our industry’s best and brightest Factory 4.0 startups.

But automatica was more than just an exchange of ideas. For the RoboLive® team, it was a chance to share a bit of our knowledge with other industry leaders. On Wednesday, our very own Arne Brökers led a discussion on Process Visualization—one of our engineers’ particular areas of expertise. Our software solution includes extensive process visualization capabilities, as well as 4 other elements that provide a compressive, intelligent look into your automated production processes.

In addition to what automatica offered, our team took some time to enjoy the south of Germany to the fullest. RoboLive®‘s German office is in Lower Saxony—a region known for its flat landscapes—so the mountains of Bavaria provided the perfect backdrop for team-building and sightseeing. A visit to Marienplatz and the Chinese Tower in the English Garden (one of the largest inner-city parks in the world) concluded a refreshing tour of the cultural, linguistic, and culinary wonders of the area. 

Now that automtica has ended, were back in action and ready to get RoboLive® in the hands of those who need it most. Our engineers are always standing by to offer custom consultations, so if you’d like an up-close look at how RoboLive® works, schedule yours today. And keep an eye on your calendar if you’d like an in-person introduction: we have additional appearance planned this year, including FABTECH in Chicago and SOUTHTEC in Greenville this fall—follow our social pages to be the first to know more.

What You Need to Know About Vehicle-0 Base Frames

Before the long production process that puts wheels on axles and wipers on windows, cars begin life as a collection of 3D planning documents. While these plans include physical details like lines, curves, and process points, they also includes something you can’t see in real life: the origin point.

The origin point is the arbitrary center of the vehicle from which everything else is referenced. The spots on the vehicle where processes will take place are also referenced from this point. If the origin point (0, 0, 0) is on the hood, for example, then there might be a need to have a spot weld done on the door at (0, 5, 0), relevant to a coordinate system starting at the origin.

This concept becomes more complicated when robots get involved. Each industrial robot in the production process has its own, separate origins and coordinate systems which are used to calculate their instructions and positioning in 3D space. And during robot programming, it’s these origins—rather than the vehicle’s origin—that are sometimes used as a base. But smart manufacturers are doing things a different way: using vehicle-0 frames instead.

Using vehicle-0 base frames for your robot programs prevents a lot of common problems that occur on the factory floor. This is because unlike other options, vehicle-0 frames reference the part itself—so even if real-world factory conditions differ or diverge from the simulated environment, it’s easy to get things back on track. For example, if a robot is programmed with its own origin as a base frame, any change to the factory means that the part’s position relative to the robot has also changed and instructions based on an expected distance between the two will no longer give the right results. But if your robots are programmed using vehicle-0 base frames, processing instructions are written using the part itself as a reference. That means that no matter how factory conditions change, your program only needs to be re-aligned according to the new position of the part.

For these reasons, vehicle-0 base frames are quickly becoming a standard for manufacturers that mean business. But despite the opportunity for optimization, there are some challenges posed by the implementation of vehicle-0 base frames. For one, it can be difficult to find where exactly the vehicle-0 frame is when re-orienting things or teaching a robot. The origin point isn’t necessarily visible on a part, and may even exist only as abstract points in 3D space. That means that finding the origin point and relaying its location to a robot is a challenging task.

The usual method for finding vehicle-0 base frames involves a process called laser measurement. Using extremely precise measurement tools, specialists find exactly where the vehicle is relative to the robot. From there, calculations can determine where the vehicle’s origin point is located in physical space. When the alignment is complete, processes will be completed in the right place. It solves the problem—but only after an expensive and time consuming process.

Robolive® provides a new path for manufacturers wanting to harness the power of vehicle-0 base frames. Our solution uses the robot itself as a measuring device, so you can reap all the benefits of using the vehicle-0 base frames without the hassle and extra expense of laser measurement. And even if you don’t currently use vehicle-0 base frames as a standard, RoboLive® can be used to update existing robot programs to use them.

Vehicle-0 frame determination isn’t only way RoboLive® can help you optimize your robotic production processes. Integrated into the local network, the software can automatically retrieves the actual process data from robots, connect it with planned nominal data, and generates insights and understanding of the manufacturing process. With visualization tools, production timelines, and automatic documentation, it’s a one-stop solution that will save time, reduce waste, and improve quality for manufacturing operations of any size.

If you’re ready to take your factory into the modern era, our team is standing by to help. Reach out any time for a free consultation, or get started right away with a demo installation.