• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to secondary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • Subscribe
  • Your Membership
    • Edit Your Profile
  • Services
    • Advertising
    • Case studies
    • Design
    • Email marketing
    • Lead generation
    • Magazine
    • Press releases
    • Publishing
    • Sponsored posts
    • Webcasting
    • Webinars
    • White papers
    • Writing
  • Shop
    • My Account
    • Cart
  • About
    • Contact
    • Privacy
    • Terms of use
  • Events

Robotics & Automation News

Market trends and business perspectives

  • News
  • Features
  • Video
  • Webinars
  • White papers
  • Press releases
  • Featured companies
    • AMD Xilinx
    • BlueBotics
    • Elite Robot
    • RGo Robotics
    • SICK Sensor Intelligence
    • Vicor Power

labour

Construction robotics company Kewazo raises $10 million in Series A funding

January 31, 2023 by Mark Allinson Leave a Comment

Kewazo, a construction robotics startup, has closed its $10 million Series A funding round, bringing the total funds raised to date to approximately $20 million.

The round was led by Fifth Wall, with notable participation from Cybernetix Ventures, Unorthodox Ventures as well as the construction software company Nemetschek.

Existing investors True Ventures and MIG Capital also participated in the round. This round comes on the heels of Kewazo’s $5 million Pre-Series A that closed in September 2021. [Read more…] about Construction robotics company Kewazo raises $10 million in Series A funding

Filed Under: Construction, News Tagged With: analytics, company, construction, costs, data, funding, hoist, industrial, industry, kewazo, labour, leading, liftbot, on-site, percent, projects, robotic, robotics, round, scaffolding, series, services, sites, system

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

January 19, 2022 by Mark Allinson Leave a Comment

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

Filed Under: Logistics, News Tagged With: amr, amrs, cage, cages, combined, distribution, double, grocery, issues, labour, logistics, manual, operators, pay, percent, potential, productivity, rates, roll, shortages, solution, staff, time, warehouse

IAM Robotics wins contract with global health and beauty retailer

June 5, 2020 by David Edwards Leave a Comment

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

Filed Under: Logistics, News Tagged With: beauty, benelux, business, capacity, ceo, constraints, delivery, e-commerce, growth, health, iam, labour, online, operators, pick, products, robotics, robots, swift, warehouse, watson

Boeing ‘abandons’ robots in favour of humans

December 12, 2019 by Sam Francis Leave a Comment

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

Filed Under: Manufacturing, News Tagged With: airbus, boeing, called, capable, company, drilling, electroimpact, fastening, flex, fortune, fuselage, giant, human, humans, introduced, labour, news, robotic, robotics, robots, supplied, system, systems, track, tracks, years

Wanted: Robot to load dishwasher. Must be careful

May 14, 2019 by David Edwards

cambridge consultants Media-download-turbo2

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

Filed Under: Features Tagged With: applications, automate, automated, automation, base, building, dishwasher, economically, individual, industries, innovative, items, job, jobs, kitchen, labour, large, people, product, robot, robots, semi-structured, single, system, task, tasks, technology, variety, viable

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

July 21, 2017 by Sam Francis

antique sewing machine

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

Filed Under: Industry, Manufacturing, News Tagged With: automation, clothes, higher, labour, machine, manufacturing, robotics, sewing, systems, wages

Harvest Croo Robotics field tests autonomous strawberry-picking vehicle

June 13, 2017 by Sam Francis

harvest croo strawberry picker

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

Filed Under: Industry, News Tagged With: croo, harvest, labour, picked, strawberries, strawberry, system, vehicle

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

May 16, 2017 by Sam Francis

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

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

Filed Under: Features, News Tagged With: companies, hotel, japan, labour, robot, robots

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

October 1, 2016 by Mark Allinson

fashion

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

Filed Under: Features, Industry, Manufacturing, News Tagged With: apparel, asean, automated, automation, china, clothing, data, exports, factories, footwear, ilo, industry, labour, manufacturing, robotics, sewbots, technologies, technology, textiles, workers

Robots threaten 42 per cent of Canadian jobs, says report

June 15, 2016 by Sam Francis

theverge robot

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

Filed Under: News Tagged With: automation, Brookfield Institute, canada, canadian, jobs, labour, occupations, report, risk

  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Latest articles

  • Global autonomous cars market size to reach $16 billion by 2030
  • Volvo invests in Waabi to strengthen autonomous trucking offering
  • Hacking Robots: The 5 Threats You Need to Know About
  • AMD launches Kria ecosystem program to help developers bring automation solutions to market faster
  • Manufactured in the metaverse: Mercedes-Benz designs virtual factories with Nvidia Omniverse
  • Foxconn plans to build autonomous vehicles on Nvidia computing platform
  • Geek+ provides 82 robots to C-StoreMaster’s new $20 million distribution warehouse in Huntsville, Alabama
  • Flexiv launches ‘revolutionary’ force-controlled parallel robot
  • The Core Concepts of Successful Online Stock Investing
  • UPS and Gap units partner to offer ‘unmatched automation and supply chain capabilities’ to apparel merchants

Most Read

  • Foxconn plans to build autonomous vehicles on Nvidia computing platform
    Foxconn plans to build autonomous vehicles on Nvidia computing platform
  • Manufactured in the metaverse: Mercedes-Benz designs virtual factories with Nvidia Omniverse
    Manufactured in the metaverse: Mercedes-Benz designs virtual factories with Nvidia Omniverse
  • Why is My Car Key Stuck in the Ignition?
    Why is My Car Key Stuck in the Ignition?
  • Top 20 electric vehicle charging station companies
    Top 20 electric vehicle charging station companies
  • Difference Between Three-Phase and Single-Phase Power
    Difference Between Three-Phase and Single-Phase Power
  • How to Know if Your iPhone is Being Tracked? Check This!
    How to Know if Your iPhone is Being Tracked? Check This!
  • Scientists have found more water in space than they ever knew possible
    Scientists have found more water in space than they ever knew possible
  • AMD launches Kria ecosystem program to help developers bring automation solutions to market faster
    AMD launches Kria ecosystem program to help developers bring automation solutions to market faster
  • Top 20 programmable logic controller manufacturers
    Top 20 programmable logic controller manufacturers
  • What You Need to Know About Fixing an Engine Misfire
    What You Need to Know About Fixing an Engine Misfire

Overused words

ai applications automated automation automotive autonomous business china companies company control customers data design development digital electric global industrial industry logistics machine manufacturing market mobile operations platform process production robot robotic robotics robots safety software solution solutions system systems technologies technology time vehicle vehicles warehouse

Secondary Sidebar

Latest news

  • Global autonomous cars market size to reach $16 billion by 2030
  • Volvo invests in Waabi to strengthen autonomous trucking offering
  • Hacking Robots: The 5 Threats You Need to Know About
  • AMD launches Kria ecosystem program to help developers bring automation solutions to market faster
  • Manufactured in the metaverse: Mercedes-Benz designs virtual factories with Nvidia Omniverse
  • Foxconn plans to build autonomous vehicles on Nvidia computing platform
  • Geek+ provides 82 robots to C-StoreMaster’s new $20 million distribution warehouse in Huntsville, Alabama
  • Flexiv launches ‘revolutionary’ force-controlled parallel robot
  • The Core Concepts of Successful Online Stock Investing
  • UPS and Gap units partner to offer ‘unmatched automation and supply chain capabilities’ to apparel merchants

Footer

We are…

Robotics and Automation News was established in May, 2015, and is now one of the most widely-read websites in its category.

Please consider supporting us by becoming a paying subscriber, or through advertising and sponsorships, or by purchasing products and services through our shop – or a combination of all of the above.

Thank you.

Independent

Archivists

February 2023
M T W T F S S
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728  
« Jan    

Complex

Old-skool

This website and its associated magazine, and weekly newsletter, are all produced by a small team of experienced journalists and media professionals.

If you have any suggestions or comments, feel free to contact us at any of the email addresses on our contact page.

We’d be happy to hear from you, and will always reply as soon as possible.

Future-facing

Free, fair and legal

We support the principles of net neutrality and equal opportunities.

Member of The Internet Defense League

Copyright © 2023 · News Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies.
Do not sell my personal information.
Cookie SettingsAccept
Manage consent

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
CookieDurationDescription
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional11 monthsThe cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy11 monthsThe cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Functional
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytics
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
Others
Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet.
SAVE & ACCEPT