Reinventing Manufacturing

Major Drivers of Change
Automation
When we think of robots, many of us think of everything
from R2-D2 to hulking machines that weld together
automotive parts to autonomous vacuum cleaners that
scurry around cleaning our living room floors. Industrial
robots, however, are at the onset of a new wave of
innovation with the potential to significantly alter the
manufacturing floor and with it, industry. Manufacturers
are moving beyond the large, expensive, caged
robots that tirelessly perform simple, repetitive tasks in
a fixed system, into a new era of “collaborative robots”
or “co-bots.” These co-bots work alongside humans on
the manufacturing floor to enhance safety, precision and
productivity in an increasing number of applications and
without fundamental redesign of the flows in the factory.
Distinct from simple automation, robots, and especially
co-bots, can work in unstructured environments, making
use of sensors, vision software, sonar, and autonomous
navigation technology to take on tasks that formerly only
a human could do. Robots can relieve workers of straining
or dangerous factory tasks and can often perform tasks
faster and more precisely than a human could. While
robots are becoming capable of an increasing array
of tasks, in recent years, approximately three quarters
of industrial robots in use specialize in three tasks:
handling operations (38 percent), welding (29 percent)
and assembly (10 percent). 5 These tasks are simple and
repetitive, generally performed in a sectioned-off portion
of the plant, and the robots are monitored locally by
trained technicians and programmers.
The cost of traditional industrial robots has fallen
dramatically in recent decades in comparison to human
labor compensation, but it remains high relative
to the new wave of co-bots. A traditional robot could
cost in excess of $100,000 for the machine itself and
would generally require at least twice that in additional
expenses to program, install and set up the machine on
site. 6 The new collaborative robots can cost less than
$30,000 and can be set up for an initial task in as little
as an hour, without requiring any reconfiguration or
extended disruption of the manufacturing floor. Such
low capital expenditure means that robots now compare
favorably on an hourly basis to human labor, even in
lower-wage countries.
Co-bots have the added capability of being flexible, as
they are able to switch among multiple tasks with little
modification or reprogramming. Such flexibility enables
shorter production runs with changeovers that are less
complex and time consuming. In the European Union,
the LOCOBOT consortium project to develop co-bots
for the electric vehicle industry estimates that the industry
will see near-term (2–5 years) benefits due to the
increased efficiency and flexibility afforded by co-bots. 7
While the prevalence of “lights out factories” (in which
a facility runs fully automated) or the full deployment
of co-bots may be a decade or more away, companies
should be thinking now about how robots will come
to change their industry and their own operations. As
robotics technology continues to advance, as requirements
for precision assembly increase, and as wages
continue to rise, the trade-off will increasingly tip towards
automation across industries and factory tasks.
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