According to figures from the International Federation of Robotics, the manufacturing industry in Germany was already highly automated before the coronavirus pandemic and ranked third in the world behind Singapore and South Korea in terms of robot density. This trend is likely to continue after the Covid crisis. The following aspects are among the most important advantages of robotics for around 80 percent of industry decision-makers: Employees can be relieved of tasks that are hazardous to their health; production can be quickly switched to new tasks with robots, and production costs can also be reduced. In order to overcome the crisis, machine helpers are once again becoming the focus of management. These are the results of the automatica trend index. For the survey, 100 industry decision-makers and 1,000 employees were interviewed by a market research institute in Germany in the run-up to the automatica trade fair for intelligent automation and robotics (December 8 to 11, Munich).

"Industrial companies with robots can specifically automate individual work steps to ensure social distancing in production," says Patrick Schwarzkopf, Managing Director of the VDMA Robotics + Automation Association, on the contribution of industrial robotics to overcoming the Covid crisis. "The new requirements for safe workplaces in production can be easily implemented with the help of robotics. As practice shows, robots help to make important manufacturing processes more resilient and implement new requirements quickly."

Crisis response with robots
"Right at the beginning of the Covis crisis, several pharmaceutical customers in Europe, the USA and Asia asked us to support a rapid increase in their production so that they could deliver duplicate lines for diagnostic kits as quickly as possible," says Jean-François Bauer, Head of Business Development at Swiss assembly solutions specialist Mikron Automation. "At the same time, we expect strategic decisions from the past to be put to the test following the recent pandemic experience. Dependencies in supply chains, for example, are likely to lead to companies in Europe or the USA building up new capacities in their home markets with the help of robotics and automation in order to reduce identified weaknesses."

Forecast for SMEs
The automatica trend index also shows that flexible production with industrial robots is likely to be used more frequently by German SMEs in the future. In their forecast, 84 percent of industrial decision-makers expect that the increased use of robotics in SMEs is not a question of "if" but "when". 81% state that programming robots has become easier, paving the way for their use in small and medium-sized companies. On the other hand, two thirds of those responsible see the fact that their own employees still lack the necessary training for robot operation as an obstacle.

Employers can count on a fundamentally positive attitude among employees: A good three quarters of employees consider training in the use of robotics to be an important offer from (medium-sized) companies. Just as many say that companies that offer further training in robotics and digital technology are attractive employers for skilled workers.

The automatica Trend Index was conducted by a market research institute and consists of two sub-surveys: For Part 1, a total of 100 specialists and managers in Germany who make decisions about robotics and automation in industrial companies were surveyed at the beginning of 2020. The participants work in mechanical and plant engineering (37%), the automotive industry (22%), the electrical industry (14%), the food industry (9%) and other industrial sectors (18%).

For Part 2, a total of 7,000 participants in seven countries were surveyed at the beginning of 2020 on how robots and digitalization are changing the world of work: USA (N=1,000), China (N=1,000), Japan (N=1,000), Germany (N=1,000), France (N=1,000), Italy (N=1,000) and the UK (N=1,000). as