Robots joined the U.S. workforce last year at an unprecedented rate, doing jobs like pulling bottles and cans off conveyor belts at recycling plants and putting products into boxes at e-commerce companies. And it looks like the trend will continue in 2022.
Companies across North America invested more than $2 billion in nearly 40,000 robots in 2021 to address record demand and labor shortages impacted by the pandemic. Robots began to work in more industries, going far beyond their historic presence in the automotive sector.
“With human labor, what they produce depends on whether they’re hungry or tired or had coffee,” said Brian Tu, chief revenue officer at DCL Logistics in Fremont, Calif.
Factories ordered 39,708 robots in 2021, 28% more than in 2020, according to data compiled by the Association for Advancing Automation. The previous annual record for robot orders was in 2017, with orders for 34,904 robots valued at R$1.9 billion (R$10 billion).
In 2016, robots sold to automakers more than doubled compared to deliveries to all other industry sectors. In 2020, other companies outperformed the automotive sector, such as metals and food and consumer goods.
E-commerce is another one of rapid expansion. At DCL, which has five e-commerce centers, lines that received robots can operate with fewer people and produce 200% more. A growing share of robots is a new generation of “cobots”, designed to work alongside humans on assembly lines.
“The main driver for automation is the shortage of manpower in the industry,” said Joe Campbell, manager at Universal Robots, a unit of Teradyne that specializes in cobots.
Campbell said cobots are entering industries that have long resisted automation. In construction, he sold robotic arms to a company to install drywall on large projects.
Car factories are also finding new uses. Stellantis is using cobots at its factory in Italy to help produce the new Fiat 500 electric vehicle.
While auto factories have used robots for decades to do jobs like welding metal, he said, it’s a novelty for cobots to do final assembly work.
Last week, Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk said he will launch a humanoid robot in 2023. In the short term, these robots could transport items in a factory and eventually solve the labor shortage.
Source: Folha
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