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​Is Robophobia Holding You Back?

​Is Robophobia Holding You Back?

Robots in the manufacturing environment are not new, so what is preventing some companies from adopting the latest collaborative robots? Some believe that this is primarily due to a basic lack of familiarity with the technology.

Safety is a major issue that is cited by those who object to robotic assistance in manufacturing. This perception of robots may stem from the fact that historically robots have been secluded behind safety guarding and operated separately from workers. The idea that these types of robots milling around next to workers in understandably scary to think about, but the new types of collaborative robots offer very different safety technology from traditional manufacturing robots and that is important to explain to anyone with safety concerns.

Universal Robots collaborative robots are specially designed to work side by side with humans. The UR3, UR5, and UR10 models feature power and force limiting, speed and separation monitoring, and hand guiding.

A fear of becoming obsolete in the workplace is another common fear. Historically, humans have become more productive, rather than replaced, by technological advances and collaborative robots are no different. In many cases, new jobs will arise as a result of collaborative robot installation, such as a robot programmer. A perfect example is in the case of the computer. When computers were introduced, workers had to move from using typewriters; this didn’t make them less necessary but it did increase their productivity.

Workers at Professional Finishing in California, were less than enthusiastic when the company announced that it would be adding collaborative robots to its manufacturing floor. Co-owner Dawn White said, “We did have one employee tell us, ‘Hey let me know when the robot’s up and running and I'll just quit.’” She responded that the employee should be patient and that she expected the robot would help everyone in the company keep their jobs rather than replace anyone.

For Professional Finishing, the owners thought ahead when planning the future of their company. The expenses associated with a massive increase in minimum wage by 2020 necessitated an operational change. “It was a matter of survival for us,” says Dawn. “We would have closed in less than two years if we had not brought in the robots. Everyone here would have lost their jobs.”

Since then, the Whites have installed three Universal Robots machines to assist with sanding and painting tasks while the human workers have been re-deployed on more delicate and complex tasks like assembly.

The human workers’ jobs have, perhaps predictably, become easier. “The operator would have to do a lot of bending, crouching, lifting the part, twisting, just all day long,” said co-owner Chad White, Dawn’s husband. “The robot now does all that for them. And now the the operators who used to paint these parts are now actually running the robot.”

McKinsey Global Institute research experts agree. Michael Chui, a partner at the firm, said “We think more jobs will change their activities than completely disappear, and so we'll see more of these collaborations between machines and people. When you actually have a robot next to a person or artificial intelligence next to to a person and they work better together to produce higher quality products than any one of them working alone.”

Feb 13th 2018

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