BY MARK B. SOLOMON, EXECUTIVE EDITOR – NEWS
WORK FORCE OF THE FUTURE
strategicinsight
IF THERE WERE A GQ MAGAZINE FOR ROBOTS,
the boys in the photo above could be cover material. They’re strong, flexible, and have eyes to die for.
They’re so lifelike that an executive of Deutsche Post
DHL Group, the German transport and logistics giant
testing their use, referred to one in an interview as
“he” before correcting himself with a chuckle.
Deutsche Post DHL chose “Baxter” and “Sawyer”
because their “humanoid faces” would increase their
acceptance among its distribution center workers and
make the workers feel more at ease toiling alongside
them, said Denis Niezgoda, project manager, innovation and trend research, for the company’s customer
solutions and innovation unit. “It’s a simple concept,”
but one that has so far proved to be effective, said
Niezgoda, who oversees the pilot deployment of four
robots being used to execute co-packing functions at
facilities in the U.S., the U.K., and the Netherlands.
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, flesh-and-blood types should take the next wave of robotic
design as a compliment. Robotics developers, aware
that direct human-machine interaction is inevitable,
are creating robots with more humanlike characteristics than ever before. Within the next five to 10 years,
a large number of “collaborative robots,” or “cobots,”
will be scooting around DCs without the markers,
magnets, beacons, or tracks that guide the movements
of traditional industrial robots. It will become second
nature for workers to take a robot by the hand (or the
wrist) and walk it through the repetitive and hazardous tasks the humans used to do.
Sophisticated elastic “actuators” implanted in a
robot’s joint will enable its arms to detect impending
contact, and to be flexible and pliable in much the
same way a human arm is. Thanks to force-sensing
technology that commands robots to stop whenever
Can we all just get along?
When it comes to DC workers and their mechanical counterparts,
the answer is probably yes, if collaborative robots perform as intended.
P
H
O
T
O
C
O
U
R
T
E
S
Y
O
F
R
E
TH
I
N
K
R
O
B
O
T
IC
S
