New Jobs
for Robots

Robots weld, sol­der, paint, trans­port, and work hand in hand with peo­ple in many ways. They have become a ver­i­ta­ble fix­ture in indus­try and the ser­vice sec­tor. A glance at the num­bers reveals the impor­tance of these tech­ni­cal assis­tants, espe­cial­ly in indus­try. Accord­ing to the Inter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion of Robot­ics (IFR), around one mil­lion robots were in use world­wide in 2010. This fig­ure tripled to more than three mil­lion by 2020. That doesn’t sur­prise Leonar­do Leani, Divi­sion Man­ag­er for Robot­ics & Dis­crete Automa­tion at ABB in Italy. “Com­pa­nies are installing robots to opti­mize pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, lower costs, and ulti­mate­ly increase their prof­its. In effect, the robots are mak­ing them more competitive—on a sus­tain­able basis.”

Robots are indeed mov­ing into ever more areas of appli­ca­tion. The e‑commerce boom of recent years has spurred the rise of autonomous, intel­li­gent, and secure sys­tems for load­ing and unload­ing pack­ages. New pos­si­bil­i­ties are also aris­ing in con­nec­tion with e‑mobility. In many places, for exam­ple, charg­ing process­es for elec­tric vehi­cles are facil­i­tat­ed by auto­mat­ed assis­tants. Togeth­er with the U.S.-based com­pa­ny Dor­man, ABB has suc­ceed­ed in automat­ing the reman­u­fac­ture of elec­tric car batteries—at an impres­sive rate. With robots, man­u­fac­tur­ing time can be short­ened by 66 per­cent and the daily out­put of “bat­tery packs” can be tripled.

In addi­tion, robots are incor­po­rat­ing ever more inno­va­tions from relat­ed tech­nolo­gies such as arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, machine learn­ing, cloud com­put­ing, and 5G mobile com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Around ten times faster than their 4G pre­de­ces­sors, 5G sys­tems can trans­mit high­er vol­umes of data with­out time lags. This in turn encour­ages new Indus­try 4.0 solu­tions and also enables robots to be used in teleoperations.

Despite the ben­e­fits they offer to indus­try now, robots were the cause of some con­cern in their early days. Clau­dio Brusatori, Part­ner at Porsche Con­sult­ing Italia and head of the ABB client team, recalls the fear that machines might end up mar­gin­al­iz­ing humans. But instead of dis­place­ment, ever more indus­tri­al strate­gies have peo­ple and robots work­ing togeth­er. “User-friend­ly, sim­ple, agile, and quick-response robots are now being designed to inter­act close­ly with humans,” he says. “They’re evolv­ing from tools into high­ly devel­oped and col­lab­o­ra­tive machines—that enhance process­es and pro­mote employ­ee well-being.”

Even if robots were to replace humans, that would be in areas we wouldn’t miss, explains Brusatori. “Robots are reliev­ing humans of the need to enter haz­ardous sites or toxic envi­ron­ments. They can carry heavy loads under adverse con­di­tions and are not impact­ed by con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed sub­stances.” Even for­mer skep­tics now rec­og­nize the ben­e­fits robots can offer in terms of sus­tain­able and pro­duc­tive work. Ini­tial reluc­tance has given way to a new sense of opportunity.

“We’re see­ing a real par­a­digm shift in pro­duc­tion process­es,” con­firms ABB man­ag­er Leani. “Robot­ics have proved to be a sim­ple and ver­sa­tile means of increas­ing qual­i­ty and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty here in a wide range of indus­tries.” Although more com­pa­nies want to enjoy the ben­e­fits of mod­ern robot­ics, they are not always will­ing to invest the large sums need­ed for high-grade tech­ni­cal sys­tems. Man­u­fac­tur­ers like ABB have respond­ed to this stance by offer­ing new sales models—including rentals for defined peri­ods of time—to attract cus­tomers, includ­ing those cau­tious about their cash flow levels.

Long-term devel­op­ments like Europe’s short­age of qual­i­fied work­ers give Leani yet more rea­son to believe com­pa­nies will con­tin­ue the trend toward “robot col­leagues.” A sur­vey of 1,650 inter­na­tion­al deci­sion mak­ers in the indus­try con­duct­ed by ABB and the mar­ket research insti­tute 3Gem Glob­al Mar­ket in Jan­u­ary 2021 under­scores this trend as well. Some 85 per­cent of its respon­dents con­sid­er the Covid pan­dem­ic to have cat­alyzed wider use of auto­mat­ed tech­nolo­gies. Near­ly as many (84 per­cent) expect their com­pa­nies to intro­duce robots or other auto­mat­ed sys­tems with­in the next decade, or to fur­ther expand their exist­ing systems.

Sales data from IFR present a more sub­dued pic­ture, how­ev­er. The num­bers of indus­tri­al robots installed in 2019 and 2020 are con­sid­er­ably lower than those for 2018. A record num­ber of 422 sys­tems was installed in 2018, but only 382 in 2019. How­ev­er, the num­ber of sys­tems deliv­ered under Covid in 2020 then remained sta­ble at 384.

Addi­tion­al fac­tors could con­tribute to uncer­tain­ty on the mar­ket. A tec­ton­ic shift in the cus­tomer struc­ture for indus­tri­al robots took place in 2020. Ever since the first indus­tri­al robots were sold to Gen­er­al Motors in 1961 and installed at its plant in New Jer­sey, the auto­mo­tive indus­try has been the largest buyer of these tech­nolo­gies. In 2020, how­ev­er, the role of pre­mi­um client was assumed by the elec­tron­ics sec­tor. The reper­cus­sions of this chang­ing of the guard can­not be pre­dict­ed with any cer­tain­ty at present.

Leani and his col­leagues aim to fos­ter sus­tain­abil­i­ty not only in sales. ABB also wants to shoul­der respon­si­bil­i­ties and help lower car­bon emis­sions. Leani has set ambi­tious tar­gets. He wants to help his cus­tomers reduce their annu­al car­bon emis­sions by at least 100 mega­tons by 2030. That’s approx­i­mate­ly equiv­a­lent to the annu­al emis­sions of 30 mil­lion cars or 40 coal-fired power sta­tions. “This is a way to achieve car­bon neu­tral­i­ty at all our plants and lower emis­sions along the entire sup­ply chain.”

Leani is chart­ing a mod­ern­iz­ing course in other areas as well. He places a pre­mi­um not only on employ­ee and con­trac­tor sat­is­fac­tion, but also on gen­der, gen­er­a­tional, and LGBTQ+ diver­si­ty and equal­i­ty at the com­pa­ny. “In terms of gen­der equal­i­ty we’re try­ing to even our num­bers for man­agers as well as employ­ees by 2030,” he says. Pro­mot­ing a good work­ing envi­ron­ment seems like an excel­lent idea when there’s a short­age of skilled workers—especially in areas where robots can­not yet be used.