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Manufacturers are reshaping their factories to make room for collaborative robots—bots are designed to help existing employees rather than take their jobs.
The robots are designed to operate in tight spaces, stop if they are bumped into and take over repetitive tasks to let employees focus on more skilled work, the Wall Street Journal reports. At the General Motors plant in Lake Orion, MI, these robots stack spare tires and pour hot glue.
Manufacturing execs say collaborative robots help employees by making work safer and increasing efficiency, thereby allowing US factories to be more competitive against low-wage factories overseas. And so far, employees seem to like them, with Whirlpool employee Karen Beidler telling the WSJ, “If I can get some help doing my job, I’m all for that. It’s technology helping manpower—you can’t beat it.” [WSJ]
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