Your Indramat components are maintenance-free. What does that mean? You can’t do basic maintenance One thing it means is that you can’t do basic things like changing the bearings or topping up the lubricant. Indramat components are not designed to be repaired on the machine or even out in the field. They are designed to… Read more »
America is facing a labor shortage, and robots are helping to fill the gap. Robot orders were up by 40% in the first quarter of 2022, according to the Wall Street Journal, and it’s all because of the labor shortage. The most recent figures for the U.S. show eleven million open jobs. There aren’t nearly… Read more »
Factories rely on automation to lift the burden of dull, dangerous, and dirty work off human shoulders. Some of those humans worry that they’ll lose their jobs — and admittedly, some already have. But new research is finding that once it’s in place, automation increases happiness. Money, not manufacturing Some recent research has nothing to… Read more »
Planned downtime can’t be avoided. In some cases, it actually needs to occur to make sure that everything stays in good working order. Unscheduled downtime, on the other hand, is a costly and undesirable waste of time and money. Every manufacturer wants to eliminate unscheduled downtime. Actually eliminating unscheduled downtime isn’t quite so simple, though…. Read more »
Yes, it’s our old friend Spot the robot dog! The British Ministry of Defense got 40 coders from the UK together to participate in the Robot Dog Olympics — and by the way to identify ways that the robotic dogs can help the British Army. The robot dogs don’t carry weapons or participate in battles,… Read more »
The New Yorker paired reviews of two new books in an article that suggests that automation is not taking over human jobs…but not in the usual way. That is, one side says that automation is on the rise and will take over a lot of the tasks currently done by humans, leaving people with fewer… Read more »
Manufacturing is much more vulnerable to cyber attacks than in the past. More data is collected, more of it is decentralized, and more cybercriminals are at work. There are also more third parties gaining access to factories and their data. Human error is still number one While movies might make us think that the average… Read more »
There are tiny nanorobots, but how big are those big robots in the movies? Those are fictional robots, or mechas to be precise. There are some pretty big robots in the real world, too. A Japanese robot built a couple of years ago tips the scales at 25 tons. But what factors determine the size… Read more »
Robots may take over human jobs because they are more precise, more consistent, more accurate, cheaper, less demanding of benefits and privileges, and faster at their jobs. But there’s another reason: robots are making hiring decisions. No, you’re not likely to sit down with a robot for a job interview, but increasing numbers of companies… Read more »
Robots have a checkered history inn hotels. There was the all-robot hotel staff in Japan…that was fired and replaced by humans. There was Pepper, a popular concierge…that is no longer in production. Research shows that hoteliers believe human beings are better at hotel work than robots. Yet robots are increasingly showing up in hotels. More… Read more »