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Opinion: How to double up grocery logistics productivity with autonomous mobile robots

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With growing labour availability issues, how can grocery logistics operations significantly boost performance? Vincent Jacquemart, CEO at French autonomous mobile robot designer and manufacturer iFollow, offers a solution.

Faced with the likelihood of long term staff shortages and resulting rises in pay rates, warehouse and distribution centre operators in grocery and many other sectors are turning sometimes belatedly to automation. This is certainly an option but not all solutions deliver really significant productivity improvements.

Labour shortages in logistics have been building for some years, by no means just because of Brexit, and the inability to fulfil orders reliably is becoming an existential threat for many firms.

Logistics UK in October claimed that “13 percent of traders are reporting severe warehouse staff shortages”; in November the Cold Chain Federation noted “10 percent to 20 percent shortage rates” among its members. [Read more…] about Opinion: How to double up grocery logistics productivity with autonomous mobile robots

IAM Robotics wins contract with global health and beauty retailer

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IAM Robotics, makers of autonomous mobile manipulation robots, has won a contract with new client A.S. Watson Group, one of the world’s largest international health and beauty retailers with over 15,700 stores in 25 markets.

A.S. Watson will implement a fleet of Swift robots from IAM Robotics at its Benelux e-commerce fulfillment center in the Netherlands to help solve labour and capacity constraints due to a fast-growing, high-volume health and beauty retail business.

Ed van de Weerd, CEO of A.S. Watson health and beauty Benelux, says: “Our business in e-commerce is growing rapidly, and we need a way to keep up with the growth while offering next-day delivery within our existing fulfillment center, which is important for us to deliver the group’s online and offline strategy. [Read more…] about IAM Robotics wins contract with global health and beauty retailer

Boeing ‘abandons’ robots in favour of humans

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Boeing has reportedly abandoned the use of some robotic systems that were being used for fuselage work such as drilling and fastening.

According to the Seattle Times, the implementation of the robots “proved painful to set up and (was) error-prone”.

The news website quoted Jason Clark, Boeing vice president of 777/777X operations, who said back in 2015, when the robots were first introduced: “It’s a little tough in the teething. But as we get through it, it will create the rewards necessary for us to compete.” [Read more…] about Boeing ‘abandons’ robots in favour of humans

Wanted: Robot to load dishwasher. Must be careful

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Chris Roberts, head of industrial robotics at Cambridge Consultants, provides an overview of the jobs robots could potentially do in future

Cambridge Consultants recently announced a new technology for automating one of the most unloved jobs in a commercial kitchen – loading the dishwasher.

This technology combines innovative robotics with cutting edge AI to achieve something hitherto impossible – detecting and handling a wide variety of dirty crockery haphazardly arranged on a tray.

However, the fundamental techniques used in this product can be applied to a wider range of situations and problems. There are many different tasks that it is only now possible to automate.

[Read more…] about Wanted: Robot to load dishwasher. Must be careful

Higher wages and pressure to bring back manufacturing to the US could result in millions of job losses in clothes-making industry in Asia

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A combination of higher wages in Asian countries and a trend for bringing back manufacturing to the US could dismantle large parts of Asian economies, many of which depend on the textiles and clothes manufacturing trades for huge portion of their national income. 

An interesting video report by the Financial Times points to this possible future, but adds that in practice, for now, “almost all of the world’s T-shirts and jeans by millions of cheap workers, mostly women, watching over sewing machines”.

And beyond T-shirts and jeans, the vast majority of jobs and tasks in the clothes manufacturing sector in general is still done by humans.  [Read more…] about Higher wages and pressure to bring back manufacturing to the US could result in millions of job losses in clothes-making industry in Asia

Harvest Croo Robotics field tests autonomous strawberry-picking vehicle

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Harvest Croo Robotics is field testing an autonomous vehicle designed to help plant and pick strawberries, according to a report on ThePacker.com. 

The new vehicle looks rather unlike your typical farm vehicle, and is designed to straddle six strawberry beds as it moves along. It uses GPS navigation, LiDAR vision and carries 16 robots which will do the actual planting and picking of the strawberries.

The robots will use a proprietary vision system which will identify which strawberries are ready to be picked (probably based on colour as robots can’t smell or taste yet as far as we know). Picked strawberries will then be moved to the platform level for further inspection and grading.  [Read more…] about Harvest Croo Robotics field tests autonomous strawberry-picking vehicle

Japan turning to robots because there’s not enough humans around

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FILE PHOTO: Humanoid robots work side by side with employees in the assembly line at a factory of Glory Ltd., a manufacturer of automatic change dispensers, in Kazo, north of Tokyo
Humanoid robots work side by side with employees in the assembly line at a factory of Glory, a manufacturer of automatic change dispensers, in Kazo, north of Tokyo, Japan. Reuters / Issei Kato / File Photo

By Stanley White, Reuters

Desperate to overcome Japan’s growing shortage of labour, mid-sized companies are planning to buy robots and other equipment to automate a wide range of tasks, including manufacturing, earthmoving and hotel room service.

According to a Bank of Japan survey, companies with share capital of 100 million yen to 1 billion yen plan to boost investment in the fiscal year that started in April by 17.5 percent, the highest level on record.

It is unclear how much of that is being spent on automation but companies selling such equipment say their order books are growing and the Japanese government says it sees a larger proportion of investment being dedicated to increasing efficiency. Revenue at many of Japan’s robot makers also rose in the January-March period for the first time in several quarters.  [Read more…] about Japan turning to robots because there’s not enough humans around

Sewbots prepare to take millions of jobs off humans in clothes manufacturing sector

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More and more companies in the textiles, clothing and footwear business are turning to advanced manufacturing technologies – robotic sewing machines and connected systems – to reduce the number of humans in their factories, along with the financial and social costs of employing them.

One of the largest apparel manufacturers in India, Raymond, which employs 30,000 human workers, says it plans to replace 10,000 of them with robots over the next three years. [Read more…] about Sewbots prepare to take millions of jobs off humans in clothes manufacturing sector

Robots threaten 42 per cent of Canadian jobs, says report

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theverge robot
Possibly the most dishevelled robot we’ve ever seen… not sure how he/she got a job. Is that contraption even a robot? Picture: TheVerge.com

Brookfield Institute for Innovation + Entrepreneurship releases most comprehensive report to date assessing how automation will impact future employment in Canada

Automation is transforming traditional occupations, changing the day-to-day tasks of Canadians, and potentially creating new jobs, states new research from the Brookfield Institute for Innovation + Entrepreneurship (BII+E) at Ryerson University.

The report, released this week, entitled The Talented Mr Robot: The Impact of Automation on Canada’s Workforce analyzes automation and how it will directly affect the Canadian labour market over the next 10 to 20 years.

The report indicates that nearly 42 per cent of the Canadian labour force is at a high risk of being affected by automation – the replacement of workers by technology and computerization – in the future.  [Read more…] about Robots threaten 42 per cent of Canadian jobs, says report

Stop praying to the gods of the free market and roll out the red carpet to robots, urges Labour

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The UK Labour Party is urging the government to turn away from “the gods of the free market” and instead roll out the red carpet to our new robot overlords.

Or at least that’s what could be inferred from an opinion piece written by the Labour Party’s deputy leader, Tom Watson, who made it clear that he favours mechatronics over abstract notions of free markets.

“A robot driving a lorry may sound daunting, just as a horseless carriage did in 1890. But a driverless car doesn’t get tired, or drink alcohol, or have blind spots,” writes Watson in praise of the machines.

Watson calls for a royal commission into the issue of robotics and automation in the UK, claiming that the chancellor, George Osborne, is leaving to fate to decide whether technological change becomes “out ally not our foe”.

Full story at The Guardian.