Benefit from cobots

Cobots

13.02.2018, 13:39

Benefit from cobots

Back in the 1920s, futurologist Roy Amara stated: "We tend to overestimate the impact of a technology in the short term and underestimate it in the long term." This sentence also applies to collaborative robots (cobots), says Rethink.

Cobots complement employees in many industrial manufacturing applications. (Image: Rethink)

They are a further step in the history of automation. Companies and employees benefit from them particularly with regard to two factors: firstly, collaborative robots expand the possibilities and flexibility of companies. For example, companies that produce in two shifts can expand their production to three shifts by implementing cobots. This third shift increases productivity accordingly. An additional night shift is conceivable, for example, which would not exist without cobots.

On the other hand, cobots complement employees in many applications, such as tasks in dirty, noisy or dusty environments, working with hot workpieces or handling chemicals. In addition to tasks that tend to be dangerous, collaborative robots also handle boring and repetitive tasks. A cobot can pick up workpieces that are placed and drilled, as well as continuously inserting materials into machines. Thanks to the cobots, employees performing such tasks can take on more meaningful, creative and innovative tasks - the perfect collaboration of machine efficiency and endurance as well as human creativity, Rethink reports. pb

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