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Aadya Avinash, Head – Brand, Marketing and Corporate Communications, ANSCER Robotics.
Labour shortages are probably not the first idea to come to mind when you think of the world’s second most populous country. However, reports found that, as of January this year, India has been facing a 15-25% manpower shortage across sectors including but not limited to healthcare, manufacturing, and pharmaceuticals.
The landscape of the blue-collar workforce has been rapidly transforming for years. Considering the mental and physical stress, long hours, and limited growth opportunities, it shouldn’t really be a surprise to know that most individuals wouldn’t voluntarily pick a career in the manual labour workforce. Thus, as mounting importance is given to employee safety, worker benefits, and even mental health, the attrition rates for manpower in manufacturing has been in peril for some time now. The infamous Covid-19 pandemic has only worsened this demand and supply gap, especially as blue-collar roles are majorly handled by internal migrants who were left with no choice but to leave big cities to their hometowns in smaller cities in the wake of the never-ending Covid variants and subsequent lockdowns. Considering that India has an estimated internal migrant population of 100 million workers, manufacturers are still reeling from the impact of the pandemic on the manual workforce and struggling to bounce back, even as things slowly return to normalcy.
To most people, automation seems like the obvious solution in a situation like this, specifically robotics, which can mimic and replace human effort. The ground reality, however, is that traditional robots are often enormous and bulky, making them immensely challenging to install, especially in age-old industries where implementing structural changes can be cumbersome and expensive. They are also unsafe for humans to be around, having the potential to injure and even – in extreme cases – kill people that enter their operational radius. Thus, traditional robots need a dedicated space cordoned off for them to safely operate, thereby requiring a significant chunk of room on the shop floor. Furthermore, the installation and programming of traditional robots often requires professional expertise, making for an overall expensive and inflexible operation, especially for small and medium-sized businesses that often need it the most.
Rapid advancements in technology, luckily, have paved the way for cobots. A portmanteau of the words “collaborative” and “robots,” cobots are a new-age robot with advanced safety features that enable them work securely beside humans in a shared workspace. Unlike their counterparts in conventional robotics, cobots are lightweight, flexible, and easy to program – even for first-time robot users. There are several types of collaborative robots for a multitude of applications. For example, cobot arms can be customized and used for assembly, machine tending, injection molding, painting, and many more industrial uses. Autonomous Mobile Robots, or AMRs, are another type of collaborative robot, only these are locomotive robot systems that can perceive, process, and intelligently move around an environment. They are useful for various applications in internal logistics, including lifting, trolley tugging, and sorting. Cobots can also be used in creative, non-industrial applications. For example, cobot arms around the world have been implemented in making pizzas, bartending, and even robot-assisted surgery. AMRs, on the other hand, have been deployed in hospitals to disinfect surfaces, deliver food in restaurants, or even carry luggage in airports.
While a previously unimagined concept, human-robot collaboration is a key driver of Industry 4.0 and contributes to the creation of smart, people-centric shop floors where robots take up tasks that are dull, dirty, dangerous, or difficult with high precision so that humans can instead be upskilled to handle more fulfilling tasks. Cobots also democratize automation by being safe, easily programmable, and space-saving. These features mean that cobots also enable partial automation where only specific parts of a production line can be automated, so companies big and small can flexibly automate applications in a way that complements their existing workforce, all without needing to make too many changes to their existing factory layout.
One may think that this next-gen technology exists only in expensive, foreign solutions but the exciting news is there are an increasing number of Indian robotics companies, which means manufacturers can use affordable, homegrown solutions for their automation needs. Some companies even provide Robotics-As-A-Service (RAAS), a financing option where a customer can essentially “rent” a robot for periods of time. In addition to enabling businesses to experience the benefits of robots without putting a strain on finances, RAAS also allows companies to experiment with robotic technology before making a permanent investment.
It’s no coincidence that the globe’s most advanced manufacturing nations like China, Japan, Germany, and the USA, are also the biggest robot users. Reports from the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) found that China led the world with around 170,000 robots deployed in 2020. In contrast, India deployed less than a meagre 4,000 units. However, despite the slow rate of adoption, India is one of the highest potential markets for robots, and collaborative robot technology, specifically, is one form of automation to truly consider as it allows human and machine to work together, each doing what they do best. Instead of racing solely to Make in India, we need to focus on making in India with the utmost quality to truly compete on a global scale. And that means empowering businesses and – more importantly – our people, to use the right technology to not only get ahead, but stay ahead.
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Views expressed above are the author's own.
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