June 7, 2016

Manufacturers are under pressure to squeeze greater productivity from their human workforces. Industrial robots can automate repetitive tasks, but that’s only part of the reason that robots are spreading like wildfire across the factory floor. Most discussions of this phenomenon center on whether robots will replace human workers. The choice is presented as “yes or no”, and this stifles deeper analysis. For smart manufacturers, learning to think about robots is as important a topic as whether robots are learning to think about us.