The decision to automate elements of manufacturing is no longer a question. It's not a matter of "if," it's a matter of "when" at this point. As more elements of modern manufacturing are given to robotics, more and more people are getting older and retiring.
An aging workforce, combined with a rising robotics industry, combines to create a skill gap that is growing exponentially as time goes on. Thankfully, robots are part of the solution, not the problem. Join us as we look at three ways this growing industry can fill the skills gap.
With a rising robotics industry it is vital to give your employees the needed skills to do their jobs.
3 ways robotics can close the talent gap
The numbers are there. There are millions of jobs available, but not enough people to fill them. The longer we wait to address this issue, the bigger the problem gets. Here are three ways we can leverage robotics to fix this ongoing issue.
People like to talk about robots taking jobs, but we don't hear enough about how they're creating them. For every job a robot can perform, it also creates several new jobs. It's also important to remember that the jobs a robot is "taking" are low-pay and low-quality.
Today's workforce doesn't want to work on an assembly line, nor should they. Basic manufacturing tasks are not ergonomically friendly, and can lead to injuries in the long-term.
By allowing robots to take over these menial tasks, we can empower human workers to tackle bigger and more important tasks that are not only more valuable, but of higher quality, and therefore, offer better pay.
These kinds of prospects will attract the kind of talent manufacturers are looking for, thus presenting one way to fill the gap.
Manufacturers need to empower the people they have on staff right now. Today's collaborative robots are not incredibly difficult to program or work with. The training to understand them is relatively simple in the grand scheme of things.
If we can offer training to current workers that allows them to take on robotic tasks, this can also fill the gap by leveraging the latent talent we currently have in our workforce.
Finally, we need to go back to the roots of the problem. The robotic industry needs trained people to maintain robots, design them, build them, and improve upon them. This kind of training can be taught in our schools and colleges.
If we offer more access to robotics education, then people can become more excited about robots earlier in their lives. There isn't enough out there to get people on board, so we need to change that. Robots are indeed the future, but until we start addressing them at a younger age, there won't be enough trained individuals.
How do you work to fill the skills gap in your manufacturing plant? Let us know what strategies you employ in the comments!