By Mehdi Miremadi, Subu Narayanan, Richard Sellschop & Jonathan Tilley
Today’s robots can see better, think faster, adapt more readily to changing situations and work with a gentler touch.
These improvements are helping to drive demand. In fact, we expect the global industrial robot population to double to about 4 million by 2020, changing the competitive landscape in dozens of fields—from mining to retail to aerospace. These changes will have profound implications for millions of laborers around the world and thousands of companies. Manufacturing footprints are likely to change substantially, and new business models will emerge to help innovators tap new opportunities and disrupt industries.
Three powerful trends are spurring the use of robots:
- They’re much cheaper. As technology has advanced and robot production has scaled up, costs have fallen by about 50 percent since 1990—while US labor costs have risen 80 percent. In China, manufacturing wages have risen fivefold since 2008. Not surprisingly
Chinese companies are automating at an accelerating rate.
- They’re smarter and more autonomous. Advances in artificial intelligence and sensor technologies are giving robots the power to cope with task-to-task variability. Automated guided-vehicle technology gives robots the mobility needed for mining, warehouse navigation and parts delivery in manufacturing plants.
- Safer, gentler machines are integrating with the work force. Advanced safety systems are
making it possible for people and robots to work side by side, complementing each other’s strengths.
Robots can now detect the proximity of operators and adapt their speed, force and range of motion to prevent collisions.
Vision and force-sensing abilities allow assembly robots to participate in increasingly delicate assembly tasks. One robot manufacturer says that its machines can thread a needle.
Robots also are getting more coordinated; several of them can work together on the same task.
Yes, robots will replace some people who now perform manual work. But they will also require companies to employ thousands of workers with skills in analytics, programming, system integration and interaction design.
Robots can do some things better and faster than we can, but they’ll never completely replace human perspective or judgment.
They’ll just do more of the math, pound more of the rivets and thread more of the needles.
Mehdi Miremadi, Subu Narayanan, Richard Sellschop and Jonathan Tilley all work for McKinsey in various US offices.