Industrial Robots Increasingly Seen As Friend, Not Foe, To U.S. Workers

By Patrick Seitz

July 5, 2019

Instead of fearing robots, many factory workers are welcoming them as they take on repetitive or backbreaking tasks.

With unemployment in the U.S. near 50-year lows, the conversation about factory automation has shifted from industrial robots taking jobs to robots helping solve labor shortages.

Instead of fearing robots, many factory workers are welcoming them as they take on repetitive or backbreaking tasks, freeing them to do higher-value jobs, industry officials say.

"The story is changing," said Bob Doyle, vice president for the Association for Advancing Automation. "Let's put to bed the notion that robots take jobs. Let's talk instead about the jobs that are being created in the manufacturing space and the problem that many of our member companies are struggling to find people to fill the jobs that they have open today and into the future."

Manufacturing jobs in the U.S. rose steadily over the last 10 years, even as industrial robots proliferated. The number of workers in manufacturing jobs stood at 12.84 million in May, up 1.5% from a year earlier, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate in the U.S. in June was 3.7%, hovering at levels last seen in 1969. With low unemployment, workers today have more choices for where they'd like to earn a living.

Industrial Robots: Good For Putting Boxes In Boxes

"There are a lot of tasks that people just don't want to do," said Robert Bollinger, robotics applied innovation leader at Procter & Gamble (PG). "Really dull jobs, like putting boxes in boxes eight hours a day — that ain't fun. If we can automate jobs like that, it allows those folks to get a better role and do something more productive."

Mike Bradley, a worker at Certain Manufacturing in White Bear Lake, Minn., can attest to that.

His company added a robot for soldering circuit boards, which is a mind-numbingly dull job, he says. Because Bradley no longer has to do that work, he can focus on jobs like programming the robot, handling shipping and receiving, and doing information technology tasks at the plant.

"The soldering work is repetitive and boring," he said. "It's the same move over and over. You're hunched over doing the same thing day in and day out. The introduction of the robot freed me up to do other things."

The soldering robot also can do the job with higher quality and greater productivity.

"It doesn't get tired," Bradley said. "Humans get tired. We get bored, so our minds start wandering. The robot stays focused on what you tell it to do at all times."

Factory Automation: Productivity Still Main Driver

The increase in industrial automation has created higher-wage jobs for technicians who maintain robotic systems, P&G's Bollinger says.

The main drivers for factory automation at P&G are productivity improvements, he says. Today's industrial robots are more intelligent and adaptable than before, allowing for faster changeovers on production lines, Bollinger says.

"We're looking at automation and robotics throughout our supply chain," Bollinger said. "That would be everywhere from material introductions into our production lines to end-of-line automation, which would include primary packages, secondary packing and case packing."

P&G is deploying factory automation at its factories worldwide because North America isn't the only region facing labor shortages and other business challenges, he says.

Industrial Robots Are Keeping U.S. Competitive

Factory automation is helping to keep U.S. manufacturing competitive, industry officials say. For instance, P&G was able to transfer production of some beauty products from Latin America to the U.S. because of robotics.

Last year, shipments of industrial robots to companies in North America rose 7% to a record 35,880 units, according to the Robotic Industries Association. In a major shift, the increase was fueled by nonautomotive companies.

Robot shipments for food and consumer goods companies jumped 48% last year. Other industries showing notable growth include plastics and rubber, up 37%; life sciences, up 31%; and electronics, up 22%.

The auto sector still accounted for 53% of total shipments of industrial robots. But that's its lowest share since 2010, the trade group says.

ABB, Teradyne Among Industrial Automation Stocks

The growth of industrial robotics has helped a host of tech companies, led by the "big four" of factory automation: ABB (ABB), Fanuc, Kuka and Yaskawa (YASKY).

Others include Japan-based Denso and Kawasaki, and U.S. companies Lincoln Electric (LECO) and Teradyne (TER).

Of those companies, four trade stocks in the U.S. ABB and Yaskawa are in IBD's Electrical-Power/Equipment industry group. That group ranks No. 87 out of 197 industry groups tracked by IBD.

The top-performing stock of the four is Teradyne, which has exposure to the semiconductor manufacturing industry. Teradyne has an IBD Composite Rating of 94, meaning it has outperformed 94% of stocks in key metrics over the past 12 months.

Factory Automation Not Just For Big Companies

The value of the industrial robots shipped in North America last year topped $1.8 billion, the Robotic Industries Association says. The top two applications for factory robots are material handling and spot welding. Other major uses include arc welding, coating and dispensing, and assembly.

The growth of the industry was evident at the biennial Automate conference, held April 8-12 in Chicago. This year's show saw attendance rise more than 25% from the 2017 show, exceeding 20,000 attendees. Automate is North America's largest showcase devoted to automation industry technology and trends.

Industrial robots aren't just for large companies anymore either. Increasingly they're showing up in small and medium factories.

"More and more we're seeing small-size companies want to automate," said Hui Zhang, head of global product management at ABB Robotics. "In the past, it was essentially large companies with a large volume production problem to solve."

Letting Industrial Robots Do The Heavy Lifting

Robotics technology is now affordable for even two-, three- or four-person operations, says Zachary Thoma, director of sales and marketing for Padget Technologies, a systems integrator in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

His firm recently installed a Kawasaki robotic arm at a small firm in Nebraska. The mechanical arm automatically lifts and stacks heavy bags of barbecue wood pellets on pallets for shipping.

"It's working at a three-man shop and eliminating a repetitive motion job," he said in a presentation at Automate. "Those bags weigh 40 pounds and the guys were standing there all day picking up bags and putting them on the pallets. It's a good operation to automate."

Robots Ideal For Dull, Dirty, Dangerous And Delicate Work

Industrial robots are ideal for "dull, dirty and dangerous" jobs, known as the three Ds. Recently industry officials added a fourth D word: delicate. It is these tasks for which robots are best suited.

Kay Manufacturing in Calumet City, Ill., has about 40 robots working alongside 175 workers. They're at two factories making automotive components, mostly for drive trains and transmissions. It has bots for machine tending, quality inspections and packing.

Brian Pelke, president of Kay Manufacturing, says the robots have freed workers from boring tasks and have improved productivity.

One robot can pack three times more units than a human worker can, he says. Plus, the robots do a better job at inspection and finding defective parts. They also are more precise in handling the parts, minimizing the risk of damage in the packing process, Pelke says.

"We make hundreds of thousands and millions of these parts every single year," Pelke said. "Instead of having an operator packing parts all day long, the operator is doing a lot more value-added activity — monitoring the process, adjusting the process. And it's a lot less stress on the operator, not keeping up with the line."

Workers Welcome Robotic Assistance

Randy Tucker, chief executive of supply-chain company Geodis Logistics, says he doesn't see pushback from workers when installing robotic systems.

"We anticipated having concerns from our workforce thinking that the robotics were replacing them. But that was actually not the case," Tucker said on a panel at Automate. "We have a much more engaged workforce in these warehouses where we have these robots."

Some companies are seeing a massive improvement in productivity from installing robots. Warehouses that have added pick-assist robots have doubled the number of units they are processing per hour, he says.

"The availability of labor is quite limited," he said at the show. "Even though you read in the papers that it's 3.8% here in the United States (in March), that's the national average. In the markets that most of us operate in, it's closer to 2.2%. So, we are having to augment our labor with robotics."

Machines Can Keep Humans Out Of Harm's Way

Robots also offer health and safety benefits that human workers can appreciate.

Battery Builders in Naperville, Ill., has seen fewer injuries thanks to automation. It is using a Kawasaki payload-lifting robot to lift metal plates used for making lead-acid batteries. Those plates can weigh 35 to 50 pounds.

"When you are lifting 35 to 50 pounds all day long, stacking battery plates, it does put a strain on your back," said Christopher Gatrel, environmental health and safety specialist with Battery Builders. "With everything being automated and the robot carrying the load, it's been a tremendous improvement in reducing the risk of injury."

The robot also decreases worker exposure to lead in the plates.

While safety was a big factor in adding robotics, the main reasons for buying the machines were to increase productivity and improve battery quality, he says.

The U.S. ranks seventh worldwide in terms of robot density in manufacturing, according to the International Federation of Robotics. The U.S. has 200 robots per 100,000 employees. South Korea is tops with 710 robots per 100,000 workers, the group says.

Robot density in U.S. manufacturing is likely to grow as the nation faces continued labor shortages from declining birthrates and restrictions on immigration, experts say.

Follow Patrick Seitz on Twitter at @IBD_PSeitz for more stories on consumer technology, software and semiconductor companies.

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