Robotics Impacts Employment, Safety, Quality, Productivity and Competitiveness.

Productivity

Robotics Impacts Employment, Quality, Productivity and Competitiveness.

Robotics Tomorrow - Contributed by Seegrid

The futuristic Jetsons had a robotic maid, Rosie. The robot in the television series Lost in Space warned of danger to adolescent Will Robinson. By the mid-1970s, C-3P0 frenetically moved with slower sidekick robot R2-D2 in Star Wars. There were the Stepford Wives, robotic facsimiles of spouses.

The hope, the promise, the fear of robots is steeped in science fiction and images that entertain and enthrall, but these ideas and images have little to do with the truth.

The truth about robots, robotics, and functional uses is the purpose of this analysis. Putting all mythic notions aside, the state of robotics today has real-world applications, impacting employment, safety, quality, productivity, efficiency, and competitiveness.

Beyond any notion of science fiction, ISO, the International Organization for standardization, defines an industrial robot as an automatically controlled, reprogrammable, multipurpose manipulator programmable in three or more axes. Leaders at Carnegie Mellon University have suggested that the field of robotics may be more practically defined as the study, design, and use of robot systems for manufacturing.

Typical applications of robots include: transportation, welding, painting, assembly, picking and placing products, packaging and palletizing, product inspection, and testing. All of these robotic tasks are accomplished with high endurance, speed, and precision.

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