Automation is everywhere…
It’s reported with ever-increasing regularity in the news and media that many industries are going to be disrupted by the rise of the robots.
Let’s look at the positives. From construction, to agriculture, manufacturing to healthcare — machines are faster, smarter, cheaper and more consistent than a human doing the same work.
Last week I was introduced to the impressive robotics project ‘Hands Free Hectare’. It is a collaboration between Harper Adams University and York-based Precision Decisions; and was partly funded by Innovate UK. The project delivered hands-free crop farming — planting, tending and harvesting crops using robots and drones.
The team believes it’s the first in the world to farm a crop in this way. They now plan to replicate the trial with a winter crop.
Industrial robots are also common in car manufacturing plants — which have long been the biggest users of robot technology — and they do jobs that don’t take much delicacy: heavy lifting, welding, applying glue and painting. People still do most of the final assembly of cars, especially when it involves small parts or wiring that needs to be guided into place.
Now robots are taking on some jobs that require more agility. At a Renault plant in France, robots made by Universal Robots AS of Denmark drive screws into engines, especially those that go into places people find hard to get at. The robots employ a reach of more than 50 inches and six rotating joints to do the work. They also verify that parts are properly fastened and check to make sure the correct part is being used.
It’s bold ambition but our vision at HausBots is to automate the construction industry — building the homes of the future, to solve the UK’s housing deficit. Last year in UK construction there were 43 fatal accidents, with around 100,000 more serious accidents. We want to reduce the danger in these situations by replacing jobs which can be done more efficiently by automation. Our first robot in development is a wall-climbing painting robot.
The Institute for Robotic Process Automation (IRPA) published an insightful report that highlights the top ten benefits of robotic process automation across major industries. They include decreased operational costs, increased efficiency, higher employee productivity, and increased customer satisfaction.
Robots are likely to replace activities within jobs — not just jobs outright. “Creativity, emotional intelligence and cognitive flexibility are skills that will tap human potential and allow people to augment robots, rather than be replaced by them.”
Despite fears that great swathes of the global workforce will be put out of work through this robotic revolution, these technological advancements are going to actually create a lot of jobs too. The focus just needs to be on making sure the world’s workforce “upskills” to be qualified in the new emergent positions. It’s important that companies invest in their workers — making sure no-one is left behind.
