Approximately 17,500 of industrial robots were installed in the automotive industry in the U.S. last year, a record number. These figures have been published by the Statistical Department of the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) and have also shown that the operational stock of industrial automotive robots has risen by about 52,000 units in the years 2010 to 2016. During the same period, the number of jobs in the U.S. automotive sector rose by 260,600 – according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“The main driving force of this growth is the ongoing trend to automate production in order to strengthen the competitiveness of American industry globally, to keep manufacturing at home, and in some cases bring back manufacturing that had previously been outsourced to other countries,” said Joe Gemma, President of the International Federation of Robotics at the World Robotics IFR CEO Roundtable in Chicago.
“The key message is the optimism about jobs in the future – especially with technology”, said Jon Battles, Amazon Director, WW Engineering Advanced Technologies. “We are so proud of announcing that we are going to create a hundred thousand new full-time and full benefit jobs in the U.S. These jobs are all across the country. I want to make a really critical point – we are doing this level of hiring after installing 45,000 Amazon robotic systems in our fulfillment centers. I don´t have any better success story to give than that and we a hiring in every job class and level.”
Professor Dr. Howie Choset of the Advanced Robotics Manufacturing Institute (ARM) emphasized the importance of automation with robots for small companies. 98.5% of all the manufacturing companies in the U.S. have 500 or fewer employees. “These small companies – this is their phrase not mine – automate or vaporate. They know if they don´t embrace automation they will not be around in the future.”
“As a small business we experience every day where our customer base will move something for pennies,“ said Craig Hertig, Director of Engineering, Engineered Machine Products. “Automation is a very usable tool, it´s very flexible. It gives you the opportunity to be competitive in a global market.” As an example of how automation made the difference, Michael P. Jacobs, President of Applied Manufacturing Technologies AMT said: “I was at a friend´s plant just outside Detroit with stamping machines. That particular plant is not very large – he has got 30 to 40 robots there. The plant had been shuttered in 2007 and he bought it in 2010. He now has over 200 employees in his plant because of automation. It is very doable by small companies.”
Education
“We will have about eight million baby boomers exiting the workforce over the next five to ten years,” said Amazon’s Jon Battles. “It turns out the baby boomers are the most industrial trained part of the U.S. workforce. We are heading towards a gap and I hope we all internalize the importance of inspiring this young generation coming up, retraining the people we have, giving them a great vision for careers in the future and following through on that. I am very optimistic about the future, the jobs and the technology. As long as we embrace it and train for it correctly we have an awesome future.”
The IFR supports the idea that education and training systems must be adapted to enable current and future workers to reap the benefits of robotics. This task falls to both public and private sectors and requires strong cooperation between the two.
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