Industrial robots

Industrial robots are commonly employed in places where objects are manufactured and sometimes where natural resources are extracted and processed. They may be used to transport objects between manufacturing processes, perform a manufacturing step, monitor and inspect components or products, and various other functions. Industrial robots usually don't look much like human beings. They are designed to fit into a specific work environment and perform a limited range of tasks. The welding probes mounted on the end of a programmable robot arm are a typical example.

Why are robots used in industrial settings?

They are tireless, consistent and reliable

A robot can repeat the same operation over and over in exactly the same way. Where a human being would tire, make errors or perform a critical process slightly differently each time, the robot provduces a consistent result, provided it is properly programmed, well maintained, and dealing with materials that are consistent in nature.

They are high hazard heros

Robots can operate where humans would not be able to survive or would become ill from unhealthy working conditions. For instance, robots can work in a paint shop without concern for toxic fumes or perform in very noisy environments that would damage human ears. Many a worker has (often unknowingly) had his life extended by many years when a robot took over a hazardous job function.

Cleanliness is next to profitability

In some industries, the materials used are so sensitive to impurities and contaminants that humans are just too dirty to be able to perform effectively. Hairs, dandruff, chemicals in an exhaled breath, skin oils, dust from clothing and many other items shed by people can easily ruin semiconductors, computer disk drives, biochemical products. In such applications, robots have replaced people in many manufacturing steps to minimize the chance of ruining a product during its manufacture. Companies can greatly improve product reliability and customer satisfaction by using robots to reduce contamination, and happy customers usually mean repeat business and higher profits.

Do robots destroy jobs for people?

This is not a simple question to answer. Sometimes robots displace human workers, but the robot often is doing a job that is unpleasant or dangerous for a human to perform. Low skill, repetitive jobs tend to disappear, but the robot creates high skill jobs in robotics, maintenance and service, programming, data analysis and other fields. It is hard on the workers displaced, for they must be retrained to serve in other capacities. Such retraining is often, but not always, successful. Even if successful, it creates economic and social stress for the people affected.

And it is not a new situation. Mechanization has been displacing human labor ever since clocks began replacing bell ringers. On the bright side, we no longer need hordes of human slaves to provide labor for our economy.

Back To Top Back This page last updated: May 1, 2006
Original content: Copyright © 2000 - 2006 Museum of American Heritage
Trademarks are the property of their owners