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Automation & the Changing Workforce: Robots as Employees?

by Freedonia Industry Studies

January 21, 2022

Automation efforts have long targeted simple repetitive tasks in a manufacturing process. Now, more sophisticated sensors and software, including artificial intelligence and analytics, are allowing automation to cover even more tasks, and capital-rich larger manufacturers are benefitting.

But what about smaller firms, many have been producing their components or products in much the same way for decades? Many smaller operators do not have the capital or cash on hand to pay for robotic equipment up front.

Solution: robots as a service.

Many other high tech products – most notably in the security area – have already made significant moves away from buying to leasing, renting, or otherwise paying for technology (equipment and software) on an ongoing rather than up-front basis. This business model allows the customer to leave programming, maintenance, and upgrades to the specialists. It will allow faster diffusion of automation into more businesses that either couldn’t afford to buy it outright or saw the technology as too intimidating or outside their own experience to handle themselves.

Formic is one company offering robots in this way. Customers “pay” the robot an hourly rate in exchange for having these robots in operation.

With the ongoing need to better deploy our resources and our workers for optimal efficiency, along with challenges from a pandemic to  that stress our workforce, the need for automation isn’t going away. The outstanding question is more about how best to do it and where to employ it…and how best to use the workers who shift out of those tasks.

For more information and discussion of opportunities, see The Freedonia Group’s extensive collection of off-the-shelf research, particularly titles such as Global Off-Road Equipment Technology and Global Material Handling Equipment. Freedonia Custom Research is also available for questions requiring tailored market intelligence.

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