Enter igus Bearings Inc.’s newly opened facility in East Providence, and you’ll be met with the sounds of whirring and clangs typical of a manufacturing floor.
But there’s a key feature that is missing at igus: the factory workers.
That’s because while the space may sound like a factory, it isn’t. Igus, a German manufacturer that bases its U.S. corporate and distribution operations in the Rumford section of East Providence, has established a 55,000-square-foot “robotics campus” as a showroom of collaborative robots – known in the industry as “co-bots” – and other automation technology that it sells to manufacturers throughout the country.
While this technology is ultimately intended to take root on factory floors and improve manufacturing efficiency, the showroom robots have the task of courting customers.
One popular machine: the six-axis robotic arm, which can move like a human arm, carrying out basic tasks such as picking and placing components and driving screws – functions essential in the manufacturing process that are repetitive and time-consuming.
“What we’re trying to do here is basically bring robots closer to people,” said Jan Hennecke, robotics product manager for igus. “The idea is that automating your factory is super risky. You spend a lot of money, it’s really complicated and there are a lot of cases out there in the industry where it’s not working.
“So the idea is we can have all the systems here, and we can show people how they work,” he said.
Robotics are nothing new on factory floors. Automakers around the world, for instance, have used robots to perform tasks such as welding since the 1960s. The sheer number of units being churned out by large-scale manufacturing facilities made early adoption cost-effective as tasks had to be repeated over and over again.
Now an evolution in technology is making robotics a more viable option for smaller factories, with the potential of transforming production floors in places such as Rhode Island, which has a deep history of innovation in the manufacturing sector.
Robotics are getting more responsive, intelligent and affordable. In addition, labor shortages among the ranks of factory workers such as machinists and assemblers are making the case for robots stronger, observers say.
And locations such as igus’ robotics labs – with its whizzing and whirling precision machines – could be on the leading edge of the transformation.
It’s not clear how many manufacturers in Rhode Island have deployed robots. Some have, but others are grappling with concerns over initial costs, expertise and adaptability.
And then there’s job displacement.
It’s a concern of Patrick Crowley, secretary-treasurer of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO. He acknowledges he hasn’t heard reports of job losses in the local manufacturing sector because of robotics and automation, but he suspects it might be the case in the near future.
“We’re starting to see [artificial intelligence] and technology creep into workplaces at an incredibly rapid level,” Crowley said, and it’s “having a really negative impact on our workforce.”
Indeed, one McKinsey & Co. report predicted that between 400 million to 800 million jobs across all sectors could disappear by 2030 because of automation.
But David M. Chenevert, executive director of the Rhode Island Manufacturers Association, says it’s not that simple, at least not in the manufacturing sector.
“Everyone thinks that because you’re using robots or co-bots that you’re displacing workers,” Chenevert said, “and that’s not necessarily the case. You have to train a worker to oversee the robot, and the only difference is that the co-bot or robot works at a much higher efficiency level.”
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TEMPO TANDEM: James Patnode, a machinist, works with Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence Inc.’s Tempo machine on the company’s manufacturing floor in North Kingstown.
PBN PHOTO/
ELIZABETH GRAHAM[/caption]
A WORKAROUND?
Cranston-based Taco Inc. – which does business as Taco Comfort Solutions – has employed robotics for years in its production of high-efficiency indoor heating, cooling and plumbing systems. At the same time, the family-owned company established in 1920 has managed a strong employee retention, with many having worked at Taco for decades.
At the Cranston facility, robots are used for repetitive tasks that also need high precision. At one station, a worker oversees robotic paint sprayers. At another, a robot spools wire onto motor parts, 10 at a time, much faster than a human could do it. But when the task is complete, a worker takes over in another part of the assembly line.
While Taco’s employees are experienced and loyal, CEO Cheryl Merchant acknowledges the company has felt the effects of an aging workforce.
As employees retire – often at an earlier than typical age, as of recent years – finding younger talent to replace them is a significant challenge, particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic.
While the industry lost around 1.4 million jobs during the pandemic, according to a report by The Manufacturing Institute, the sector quickly recovered but has struggled to fill its labor needs ever since. The report estimates that the number of unfilled manufacturing jobs will rise to 2.1 million by 2030, potentially costing employers $1 trillion in 2030 alone.
Taco sees a different solution to counteract that trend: Replacing its exiting employees with robotic workers.
“You don’t want to be cutting a workforce,” Merchant said. Rather, the robotic influx will be integrated into production as the workforce evolves.
Perhaps in a sign of the increased reliance on automation, Taco announced in the spring that it was undertaking a $20 million expansion of its Fall River plant, noting that among its new capabilities would be a robot able to weld tank heads of up to 60 inches in diameter.
And in Taco’s Italian manufacturing facility, the company recently replaced 40 temporary workers with a single automated machine, according to Merchant.
Right now, Taco employs 1,500 people throughout its locations in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Arkansas, Italy, Canada and Vietnam, with about 700 of those employees local to the Ocean State and southeastern Massachusetts.
Merchant isn’t sure just how many positions Taco will eliminate through the use of robots over time, but “it’s definitely significant,” she said.
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FAST ACTION: HEC Stator operator Brenda Portillo loads and unloads spools for a robot that spools wire onto motor parts 10 at a time, faster than a human could do, on the manufacturing floor at Taco Comfort Solutions in Cranston.
PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO[/caption]
NOTHING’S PERFECT
The question of how to integrate robots into the manufacturing process – and how this process will impact employees – isn’t a new one, says Manbir Sodhi, a professor of mechanical, industrial and systems engineering at the University of Rhode Island.
But the technology is evolving rapidly now. In the early 1990s, for instance, Sodhi recalls visiting a now-defunct Polaroid factory in Norton that the company described as one of the first fully robotic assembly lines.
But in practice, that line couldn’t reliably run without human assistance. When Sodhi arrived at the factory, the entire line was at a standstill due to a misplaced computer board – an error that a human worker needed to fix to get production running again.
Today, by contrast, “It’s possible that the same line could be attended by a robot that has the intelligence built in to say, ‘This is the board I want. It’s not where I want it to be, but I can still get it there,’ ” Sodhi said.
But employers who become overly reliant on robots still risk costly production mistakes, says Chris Jundt, tracker and automation product manager at North Kingstown-based Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence Inc., which is owned by Swedish industry tech company Hexagon AB.
Hexagon’s laser tracker technology, for instance, takes over a manual task that can cause fatigue among employees, Jundt says. But without an employee overseeing the process, a part misplaced by a robot could cost a company hundreds of thousands of dollars, or even upward of a $1 million loss.
“Robots are repeatable in nature, but they are not inherently accurate,” Jundt said, and need human guidance to ensure this accuracy.
And while some employers hope to see automation improve employee safety and well-being, Sodhi says increased automation can place greater demand on employee productivity and may lack necessary safety oversight.
In robot-heavy workplaces, such as Amazon.com Inc. distribution and warehouse floors, “the hard part of [the] job is to keep up with a robot,” Sodhi said.
Amazon is slated to open a 3.8-mllion-square-foot distribution center in Johnston in the fall, employing about 1,500 people and countless robots that will pick and carry products to packaging and shipping areas.
“It is up to someone else to put safe standards down,” Sodhi said. “Amazon says it’s safe. … But people who work for Amazon, some of them hate it.”
While some technological advances of recent years came with an assist from AI, Sodhi says other areas of progress have been developing long before AI exploded into common usage.
With these rapidly advancing technologies, workforce educators say they’re adapting to prepare trainees for a manufacturing floor that defies traditional industry associations.
Regan Brewer Johnson, president of the manufacturing education center Jane Addams Resource Corp., sees benefits and risks.
The Chicago-based nonprofit opened a manufacturing-based workforce training center in Providence a year ago – in partnership with Polaris MEP.
“I’m sure that there are jobs that are going to be taken away by automation, but there is a net positive effect on workers,” Brewer Johnson said, “and existing workers being able to be upskilled.”
Richmond-based VIBCO Inc. does not make use of robots in the assembly of its industry and construction vibrators, but CEO Karl Wadensten plans to change that.
He thinks it can be done in a way that benefits employees, but it will require careful thought for his company and for other manufacturers to accomplish this goal.
The key, Wadensten said, is “not reducing labor hours but reducing tasks that beat the crap out of people.
“Robots cannot take the genius out of people,” Wadensten said. If used properly, the technology can instead “free up minds for more important tasks.”
And there’s plenty of room for people to step into these high-level tasks at VIBCO, he says.
While manufacturing has long been a machine-assisted task, new technology is a far cry from the equipment of old. A traditional manual drill press, for example, requires an employee to move a lever up and down as if it were a slot machine, Wadensten says.
But with updated technology, “now, it’s a computer screen you’re in front of,” Wadensten said. “You have to understand all the codes and things that are going on. … You’re looking at 20 variables instead of pulling a handle.”
Jay Graves, an engineer at VIBCO, shares that vision with Wadensten, and says he doesn’t fear for his own job.
“Innovation always needs to come from a human,” Graves said. “From what I see, robots fit in here as … that tried-and-true process that maybe doesn’t require as much innovation on a daily basis, [ideally] freeing up complex processes where you need human feedback.”
Wadensten is confident in his workers’ willingness and abilities to learn this new technology, though it will require extensive training. And so far, broader education initiatives haven’t caught up with preparing new workers to carry out these tasks, Wadensten says.
NO COFFEE BREAKS
Crowley isn’t convinced that manufacturers will make good on these promises.
The idea that workforce shortages and new technology-oriented jobs will shield employees from technology’s negative impacts is “a bunch of baloney,” Crowley said.
He says, for example, about 20% of workers affiliated with the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union have lost their jobs due to the rollout of self-scan checkout kiosks in recent years.
“I think employers are using technology as a way to replace workers, as they have been for hundreds of years, by using a workforce shortage as an excuse to deploy machine technology,” Crowley said. “It’s just another way of saying a machine doesn’t take a coffee break. A machine doesn’t ask for a pay raise. Manufacturers are looking to automate because they’d rather have the machine do the work than pay people a living wage to attract them into the workforce.”
Chenevert acknowledges that automation offers clear benefits for employers. Robots and co-bots “bring a lot of consistency,” he said.
But if the cost of doing business continues to increase, “companies are going to find new ways to increase their margins,” Chenevert said. “And obviously co-bots and robots are something they’re going to consider.”
Allori Fernandes, site director of the Jane Addams Resource Corp.’s Providence location, said that robotics usage “is something that is very much gaining popularity” locally, which JARC actually sees as an opportunity to woo younger workers – and female workers – into careers in manufacturing.
“We’re still seeing these negative stigmas that are associated with manufacturing around inclusivity, around women,” Fernandes said, but at job fairs, “the robotics tables – that is something that really captivates the [youths].”
That new generation, as well as general innovation, can provide a needed shot in the arm for the industry, she says.
“We can’t keep doing what we did 30, 35 years ago,” Fernandes said. “There is a need to combine that old-fashioned, gritty manufacturing rhetoric of ‘hard work produces great product’ … with the way of the future. How can we do things cheaper, more efficiently?”
As manufacturers look to save costs and remain competitive in the broader industry, this efficiency will certainly appeal as technology continues to evolve, Sodhi says.
The versatility of a human worker makes it hard to predict just how employees will feel the effects of robots on the manufacturing floor, he says.
“The really tedious jobs will probably be done by robots,” Sodhi said, “But there will be many jobs a human has to do.”
