Page 22 - EngineerIT February 2022 UPDATED

AUTOMATION AND CONTROL

Collaboration in the workplace: How a

new generation of cobots is improving

the nature of manual work

Automation technology can make work less dangerous, strenuous, and tedious—but it calls for
sensitive implementation and a commitment to reskilling. This article will share insights from
Nicola O’Byrne, ADI’s global ambassador for robotics.

efore the start of this decade, transactions and the demand for fulfilment services, and shown industry that its far-flung,
various forces were already globalised supply chains are surprisingly fragile. Robotics has an important part to play in
Bcombining to widen the adoption industry’s response to these coronavirus-induced phenomena.
of robotics technology. Robots were being Innovations in the technology of robotics systems have made them quicker and easier to
installed in greater numbers, chiefly in implement than ever before. As the technical challenges involved in robotics become easier
factories, but also more widely in scientific to solve, the spotlight is shifting to people and processes. Robotics technology can lead to
laboratories, warehouses and logistics profound changes to patterns of staff deployment, to the requirement for skills and training,
facilities—and even in such traditionally and even to organisational culture and to society at large, and these changes deserve careful
labour-intensive domains as horticulture. attention from organisations and public bodies.
Then in March 2020, those forces were
suddenly redoubled with the onset of the New roles for new types of robots
SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. The new normal According to O’Byrne, this new wave of automation is not just about more of the same:
of the coronavirus crisis has imposed the innovative organisations are finding new ways to automate, which require new kinds
need for social distancing in workplaces, of robots and new skills in their human operators. She says: “One of the biggest new
boosted the volume of e-commerce developments is in the design and deployment of cobots. The role of cobots is to take away

Figure 1. Are cobots the new co-workers?

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