Robots are coming to the rescue of retailers and logistics firms long on orders, but short on staff. Facing a shrunken labor market, the Wall Street Journal reports that businesses like UPS are calling in collaborative robots, or "cobots," capable of safely working side by side with humans to supplement the usual seasonal surge in employment. The cobots can store, sort and package goods for shipment, as well as help human workers navigate warehouse aisles and shuttle products between stations on the floor.
Automation experts expect the use of cobots to increase rapidly in coming years, with a recent Deloitte study suggesting 2.4 million manufacturing jobs will go unfilled between 2018-2028. Though some warehouse operators are renting the cobots on a seasonal basis, others are incorporating them permanently, with the average payback time on investment now between 10-12 months.
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Tuesday, October 29, 2019
Robots replace seasonal workers in the rush to the holidays
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