Following the publication of a study which shows 20m jobs will be lost worldwide by 2030 with every robot costing 1.6 manufacturing jobs, please find comments below from Earl Yardley, Director at Industrial Vision Systems, a supplier of machine vision systems to industry. Yardley argues that robotics is saving UK business £m’s in product recalls.
Earl Yardley comments: “What we cannot forget is that automation and robotics are saving businesses millions, if not billions, of pounds in product recalls. This has a significant positive impact on the bottom-line of a business which, in turn, then allows them to grow and expand, creating jobs and employing new people. It’s a new cycle of productivity. Over the past year, unparalleled levels of developments have occurred in artificial intelligence (AI), big data, 3D imaging, and robotic process automation – none more so than on the factory floor – and this is crucial in reducing risk of error, and subsequent product recalls.
“Additionally, AI and robotics unlock new markets and applications as they work side by side with human workers. We deploy AI systems combining vision, robotics and industrial automation for automated quality control; these typically work in tandem with operators. This increases labour and total factor productivity, which relieves human workers from more commonplace work, meaning they are then typically redeployed to higher value tasks that AI cannot do. What this does, therefore, is vastly improve the performance of the business in question. Industrial automation and the factory of tomorrow – ‘Industry 4.0’ – are driving industry to find new ways to fit artificial intelligence into factories while still taking into account the needs of the workers.”
