Drives & Controls September 2022

25 www.drivesncontrols.com September 2022 ROBOTICS n Following Brexit, one of our clients, a well- known multinational logistics company, lost 30% of its contract packing labour force. The company feared that it would not be able to fulfil its contracts, thus losing revenue and letting down customers. The company’s most viable option was to install a collaborative packing robot to work safely with the remaining workforce. This allowed it to fulfil its agreements, ensure profitability and even increase throughput by 20%. It's almost a cliché that automation replaces dull, dirty, dangerous and demeaning work. But it's a cliché for a reason: it's true. Flexible automation systems are only now starting to become feasible, leaving low-hanging fruit in terms of repetitive, high-volume tasks. Whether it's packing boxes or removing widgets from a lathe, these jobs are unrewarding and becoming harder to fill. Covid-19 triggered a “great resignation”which made it difficult to find staff for high-quality work, let alone for mind-numbingly unpleasant work. Automation can fill this gap and improve the working environment, while allowing employees to work on higher-value tasks. If implemented correctly, it can even increase the quality of the job market. Germany vs the US A recent paper from MIT reviewed how an increase in robots can increase the number of jobs. It compared German and American production and found that while Germany has 30% more robots per 10,000 employees than the US, American employees are 400% more like to lose or leave their manufacturing jobs than their German counterparts. The explanation, according to MIT, is that Germany produces higher value components that require more skill and investment, but lead to a higher profit margin than US commodity products. As a result, there is a market for a highly skilled technical workforce. German manufacturing employees receive much more training than their US counterparts. When German companies implement robotics, their employees adapt to the systems and are grateful to focus on higher- value tasks. The efficiency improvements lead to more competitive companies with more attractive recruitment pitches. When US companies bring in robots, they do so to cut costs, and their staff do not have the training to adapt to new technologies. The robots are less productive, and jobs are lost. This results in worse outcomes for the employees, company and country. Improving the situation for a company’s workers also enhances its profitability. When we think of sustainability, we think of the environment and our impacts on the planet. For traditional companies, this is generally low on their list of priorities. But even if companies aren't looking for them, automation can have positive second-order effects on the planet: fewer errors means less waste; and automated facilities can remove systems such as energy-intensive heaters needed for human comfort. But the most impactful effect is in re-shoring production. Covid caused all sorts of supply chain issues. Factories in China were shut due to lockdowns, ships were stuck outside ports due to staff shortages, and a global shortage of containers led to a 300% price hike. Many companies struggled to survive the delays, costs and uncertainty of procuring abroad. This created a powerful incentive for them to localise production. Re-shoring has several additional potential benefits, including: n increasing the responsiveness and resilience of the supply chain; n boosting the number of local jobs; n reducing the environmental impacts of shipping; and n improving supply chain transparency. Companies that re-shore still have to contend with local labour shortages, but automation can help tackle this challenge while unlocking its advantages. For example, my company worked with a multi-generation family metalworking business in the North of England. For 30 years, much of its production and assembly had been outsourced to China. Covid encouraged the company to consider re-shoring, but labour shortages made this unfeasible. We developed a semi-automated press system that allowed them to automate the assembly of components, saving three full- time jobs while creating 15 new local jobs and eliminating 125 tonnes of CO 2 emissions a year. Sustainability must be thought of as an interconnected system. Improving one aspect can improve other areas. Companies that are only interested in using automation to improve profitability can also enhance sustainability for people and the planet. Revolutionary change Most companies exploring robotics, do so for traditional reasons. If they approach implementation correctly, they will bring about small improvements as described above. This is fine until we consider the scale of the problem. In 2020, net greenhouse gas emissions in the UK were around 405.5 million tonnes of CO 2 equivalent. The goal is to achieve net-zero by 2050. It's clear that gradual improvements are not enough. We need a step-change. The most exciting robotics companies are aiming to do just that. Traditionally clean-tech start- ups have struggled to attract investors and find sustainable business models. This is changing as technologies mature and investors start to love hardware. Implementing new technologies has numerous challenges but if a start-up’s products and services are successful, it can lead to revolutionary improvements. Take, for example, the Small Robot Company (SRC) which uses AI and robotics to develop sustainability-focused autonomous farms. Its smart, lightweight robots help to cut down on waste by making farming more precise, efficient and profitable. Its robots offer an alternative to chemical-intensive agriculture and can cut herbicide application by 77% and fertiliser by 15%. Remix supported SRC in developing early proof-of-concepts for intelligent farm robots which perform the tasks of planting, treating, monitoring and weeding. A second example is a company called Posh Robotics, which has automated the recycling of electric vehicle batteries. It can disassemble any battery pack using an automated process that protects operators from exposure to hazards. The company has retired 200GWh of electric vehicle battery packs, resulting in a saving of 1 billion tonnes of CO 2 . Remix Robotics is working on a similar challenge, developing an automated system for dissembling and triaging batteries for re-use. We have compiled a list of 67 companies tackling the biggest problems in sustainability with robotics and automation. For more, visit the Remix blog (link below). * Remix Robotics is an automation design agency that builds custom robotic systems. This article was originally published in its blog, The Robot Remix. You can subscribe to the blog for insights into the robotics and automation industry . www.blog.remixrobotics.com/ deep-dive-how-robotics-are-making-the- world-more-sustainable n Some companies are turning to collaborative robots to help them compensate for labour shortages