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Industrial Robots
traceability on its expansive lines.
The numbers speak for themselves.
Having new opportunities at
hand, thanks to the 4th Industrial
Revolution, companies seem to
re-shape their strategies. Hybrid
business models are becoming
more and more popular. This new
constellation allows participating
product providers and service
providers to share core competencies
to develop products and services
together or companies with the
means to expend their market reach.
“Smart products” do not only have
physical characteristics, but are
also provided with sensors which
allow traditional manufacturers
to integrate their products with
high-quality services, to enhanced
customer and supply partner
experience. A prefect example is
Michelin, which introduced it’s new
sensor-equipped tires. With the data
received on fuel consumption, tire
pressure, temperature, speed and
location and the necessary analytics,
they are now able to coach truck
fleet drivers on how to save fuel.
Another hybrid model success story
is Daimler, with its Car2Go service.
With equipping their Smart cars
with the necessary information
technology, they have taken their
business beyond simply building
cars to renting them. Both these
companies entered a new market
by improving their original products
by utilizing what technology made
possible.
Since for some businesses, as
proven previously, automation is
unquestionably an improvement
with financial benefits, the demand
for industrial robots is getting bigger.
According to the International
Federation of Robotics, while in
2000 there were 750.000 robots in
operation, this number increased
to approximately 1.8 million by
2016. They are expecting a further,
more rapid growth in stock of
industrial robots having 2.6 million
robots in operation by 2019. The
fact, that in 3 years the increase is
supposed to be almost 50%, makes
some experts quite concerned and
recognize robotic automation as an
“inevitably disruptive force”. The
World Economic Forum predicted
that robotic automation will result in
the net loss of more than 5m jobs
across 15 developed nations by
2020.
On the other hand though, according
to one of the articles in the Harvard
Business Review, if human workers
could fully be replaced by robots than
greater employment drops would be
experienced in countries with higher
investment rates in automation, but
so far there is no proven relationship
between a countries use of robots
and the percentage of manufacturing
job lost.
With the title “Robots Will Take Our
Jobs - But We Will Adapt” the TIME
published an article in which they
explain how this extremely fast and
dynamic change caused by robots
and Artificial intelligence can be
beneficial to everyone. Tyler Cowen
and other experts have suggested,
that “humans must develop skills
that complement the functions that
computers and AI systems perform
well.”
We should think of Industry 4.0 as
a change in life we can’t ignore. It
will mean a shift in the labor market,
a new way of manufacturing, it
opens up a completely new era. One
can take advantage of it by being
proactive and having an open mind,
it’s time to be pioneers.
New-Tech Magazine Europe l 39