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Companies are adopting automation to mitigate labor shortages and enhance productiveness, discovered HowToRobot. Supply: Adobe Inventory
Companies are adopting automation to not change employees however to reinforce scarce labor, based on knowledge that HowToRobot launched yesterday. It discovered that 80% of respondents mentioned their initiatives are meant to free staff from handbook duties and transfer them to different extra value-adding actions.
The Denmark-based supplier of a world automation market platform mentioned its findings affirm that companies are seeing robotics and automation as a complement to human labor, not as a alternative.
“From our day by day conversations with producers worldwide, it’s clear that the dearth of labor has been the driving issue behind enterprise selections to automate in 2023,” mentioned Søren Peters, CEO of HowToRobot, in a launch.
“By automating essentially the most cumbersome duties, companies have been liberating staff to tackle different duties wanted to take care of manufacturing ranges and fulfill buyer orders,” he mentioned. “Not one we requested did this as a result of they wished to put off folks.”
Labor shortages peaked in North America and Europe within the spring of 2022 because the COVID-19 pandemic eased, mentioned HowToRobot. These labor shortages continued at elevated ranges in 2023.
Within the U.S., manufacturing job opening charges averaged 4.5% in 2023, virtually twice the pre-pandemic common of two.8% from 2013 to 2019, based on the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
Study from Agility Robotics, Amazon, Disney, Teradyne and lots of extra.
Labor shortages stop productiveness development
The second greatest motivation for automating in 2023 was to extend productiveness. HowToRobot reported that 70.9% of respondents’ initiatives had this objective.
Robots can enhance productiveness by lowering the labor hours wanted to create the identical output, it mentioned. This permits firms to extend wages, scale back costs, and develop their income, resulting in stronger financial development.
With excessive inflation ranges over the previous three years, productiveness has been notably necessary for companies, mentioned Peters.
Labor shortages have additionally constrained companies’ capability to broaden manufacturing capability with handbook labor, additional rising demand for automation, mentioned HowToRobot. In 2023, 60.6% of automation initiatives sought to extend capability, making it the third-largest motivation to automate, the firm famous.
Hourly compensation in U.S. manufacturing alone grew by 18% between 2019 and 2023, based on BLS knowledge.
“When prices are rising quickly, what do you do as a enterprise?” mentioned Peters. “Both you narrow down or put money into areas that enhance your productiveness.”
“We’re seeing that lots of those that had the foresight – and funds – to put money into automation at the moment are popping out on prime,” he added. “They’re extra aggressive and may afford to pay their staff higher.”
Shifting employees to extra value-added duties, productiveness, and capability had been prime causes for adopting automation.. | Supply: HowToRobot
Product high quality, working circumstances matter, finds HowToRobot
A couple of third — 36.2% — of automation initiatives final yr sought to enhance product high quality and uniformity with automation, making it a reasonably necessary enterprise objective, mentioned HowToRobot.
Handbook operations throughout sure components of the manufacturing course of may end up in various product high quality and uniformity, which may result in extra buyer claims and useful resource waste. Peters mentioned that companies are more and more specializing in offsetting excessive enter prices.
“We additionally see a rising consciousness concerning the environmental affect of wasteful processes and the way robots and automation may help scale back the ecological footprint of producing operations,” Peters mentioned.
Many companies additionally seemed for automation to enhance their working environments. Final yr, 31.5% of automation initiatives had this objective, mentioned HowToRobot.
For instance, companies can automate demanding duties that contain repetitive movement, heavy lifting, or hazardous environments. This may release staff to tackle much less backbreaking and extra significant duties, HowToRobot mentioned.
“It’s changing into clear for a rising variety of companies that investing in worker well-being additionally entails automation,” Peters mentioned.
Peters has mentioned that companies shouldn’t wait to plan future robotics investments. In response to HowToRobot, the time from beginning an automation mission to signing an settlement with a vendor can fluctuate from a number of weeks to greater than a yr.
The sooner a enterprise begins the method, the earlier it might reap the advantages of automation, the corporate mentioned.
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