Current Situation
Many processes are still done manually by staff in manufacturing production floors, warehouses, and datacenter environments. These manual processes are also common in noncritical indoor “last mile” delivery (hospitals, hotels), and more.
Goals and Objectives
Provide risk reduction, cost control, and precise visibility over mundane operational processes, higher process efficiency, and allocation of staff to more subtle tasks all the while gaining in precision/speed/accuracy via automated decision support.
Technology Deployed
DX enablers: all (embedded in the robots, although not all have to be embedded in a single machine), high use of edge computing, and machine vision (AI based); pillars: nearly all (seriously again), OT and digital-ready automation, connectivity, IT/OT convergence (not always a necessity, but a growing requirement), data standardization tools for interoperability of systems, HMI (screen based but not only), and more
Use Case Summary
Staff and collaborative robots (colloquially referred to as “cobots” in manufacturing contexts) that share the work at hand (Robots are not simplistic “advanced automation” relegated to sequential repetitive “dumb” tasks and provide dynamic services to people who exploit skills and traits requiring strong cognitive intelligence, empathy, and so forth.)