Case Studies

FANUC customers share their experience operating, building, retrofitting and automating with FANUC products.

Case Study

CRX Cobot Welding Automation Ramps Up Pitts & Spitts’ Grill Production

Significant growth prompted Pitts & Spitts to consider automation to produce its industry-leading line of smokers and grills. Today, with the help of a FANUC CRX Cobot, Pitts & Spitts is able to meet production volumes and looks forward to implementing more automation to accommodate future expansion.

Challenges solved by:

ARC Specialties
  • Help Pitts & Spitts increase throughput and keep up with customer orders
  • Find a solution that is cost-effective, compact, scalable, and easy to use
  • Free up the skilled welders to tackle more intricate work

Results

  • Employee with CRX icon

    Employees quickly embraced the CRX Cobot and enjoy working with it

  • Distribution truck icon

    Distribution/market share has doubled throughout the US, Canada, Australia and Norway

  • Quality Improvement icon

    Cobot makes it easy to scale production

  • Optimization icon

    20% increase in throughput

Story

Pitts and Spitts, a leading producer of high-end smokers and grills since 1983, manufactures a wide range of products, including traditional offset smokers, wood pellet grills, charcoal grills, travel grills, combination pits, and fire pits. Over the years, Pitts and Spitts has developed a reputation for their customized product line – all built in-house by their team of skilled fabrication experts.

Steady growth prompted the need to scale its production operations, respond faster to customer orders, and expand its dealer network. Pitts & Spitts CEO Ryan Zboril turned to ARC Specialties, a FANUC Authorized System Integrator that specializes in providing welding services and automation solutions for a wide range of industries.

After reviewing traditional industrial robots, Pitts & Spitts decided that a FANUC CRX-10iA/L collaborative robot solution would work best for their needs. The CRX is compact and integrates into an existing workspace. Its friendly tablet-style programming made it easy for employees to learn and use in a very short timeframe. In fact, all the employees quickly embraced the cobot technology - they now use the CRX to handle the mundane, repetitive tasks, which frees up their time to do what people do best – the more intricate welds and quality control.

After implementing the cobot automation, Pitts and Spitts has doubled their wholesale footprint and now has distribution and wholesalers all over the U.S. as well as in Canada, Australia and Norway. They attribute this success to the automation experts at ARC Specialties, who provided the right solution for Pitts & Spitts to start their automation journey with the FANUC CRX cobot. The future looks bright, and as production volumes continue to increase, Pitts & Spitts sees the possibility of implementing additional automation at their facility.

Ryan Zboril CEO and Owner of Pitts and Spitts

If your employees have a smartphone, which everyone does, then they can easily run the cobot."

Ryan Zboril

CEO & Owner, Pitts & Spitts

FANUC Products Used

Meet ARC Specialties, FANUC Authorized System Integrator

Since 1983, ARC Specialties has provided welding services and weld automation solutions. Now a 60+ person company occupying a campus with over 75,000 sq ft. housing all the components for a vertically integrated manufacturing solution provider: research, design, manufacturing, assembly, and testing.

Pitts & Spitts

About Pitts & Spitts

Based in Houston, Texas, Pitts & Spitts has been family owned and operated since 1983. For 40 years, they’ve been one of the only American fabrication shops that’s focused on smokers and grills. From fully welded barrels to heavy gage steel, Pitts & Spitts brings both function and beauty to life with an emphasis on quality and design, locally sourced materials and unmatched attention to detail.

Other Brands We've Helped

How can we help?

Ready to start your automation journey? Have questions before getting started? We’re here to help.

Case Study

CRX Cobot Welding Automation Ramps Up Pitts & Spitts’ Grill Production

Significant growth prompted Pitts & Spitts to consider automation to produce its industry-leading line of smokers and grills. Today, with the help of a FANUC CRX Cobot, Pitts & Spitts is able to meet production volumes and looks forward to implementing more automation to accommodate future expansion.

Challenges solved by:

ARC Specialties
  • Help Pitts & Spitts increase throughput and keep up with customer orders
  • Find a solution that is cost-effective, compact, scalable, and easy to use
  • Free up the skilled welders to tackle more intricate work

Results

  • Employee with CRX icon

    Employees quickly embraced the CRX Cobot and enjoy working with it

  • Distribution truck icon

    Distribution/market share has doubled throughout the US, Canada, Australia and Norway

  • Quality Improvement icon

    Cobot makes it easy to scale production

  • Optimization icon

    20% increase in throughput

Story

Pitts and Spitts, a leading producer of high-end smokers and grills since 1983, manufactures a wide range of products, including traditional offset smokers, wood pellet grills, charcoal grills, travel grills, combination pits, and fire pits. Over the years, Pitts and Spitts has developed a reputation for their customized product line – all built in-house by their team of skilled fabrication experts.

Steady growth prompted the need to scale its production operations, respond faster to customer orders, and expand its dealer network. Pitts & Spitts CEO Ryan Zboril turned to ARC Specialties, a FANUC Authorized System Integrator that specializes in providing welding services and automation solutions for a wide range of industries.

After reviewing traditional industrial robots, Pitts & Spitts decided that a FANUC CRX-10iA/L collaborative robot solution would work best for their needs. The CRX is compact and integrates into an existing workspace. Its friendly tablet-style programming made it easy for employees to learn and use in a very short timeframe. In fact, all the employees quickly embraced the cobot technology - they now use the CRX to handle the mundane, repetitive tasks, which frees up their time to do what people do best – the more intricate welds and quality control.

After implementing the cobot automation, Pitts and Spitts has doubled their wholesale footprint and now has distribution and wholesalers all over the U.S. as well as in Canada, Australia and Norway. They attribute this success to the automation experts at ARC Specialties, who provided the right solution for Pitts & Spitts to start their automation journey with the FANUC CRX cobot. The future looks bright, and as production volumes continue to increase, Pitts & Spitts sees the possibility of implementing additional automation at their facility.

Ryan Zboril CEO and Owner of Pitts and Spitts

If your employees have a smartphone, which everyone does, then they can easily run the cobot."

Ryan Zboril

CEO & Owner, Pitts & Spitts

FANUC Products Used

Meet ARC Specialties, FANUC Authorized System Integrator

Since 1983, ARC Specialties has provided welding services and weld automation solutions. Now a 60+ person company occupying a campus with over 75,000 sq ft. housing all the components for a vertically integrated manufacturing solution provider: research, design, manufacturing, assembly, and testing.

Pitts & Spitts

About Pitts & Spitts

Based in Houston, Texas, Pitts & Spitts has been family owned and operated since 1983. For 40 years, they’ve been one of the only American fabrication shops that’s focused on smokers and grills. From fully welded barrels to heavy gage steel, Pitts & Spitts brings both function and beauty to life with an emphasis on quality and design, locally sourced materials and unmatched attention to detail.

Other Brands We've Helped

How can we help?

Ready to start your automation journey? Have questions before getting started? We’re here to help.