The lack of skilled labour and business continuity objectives drives the Cobot market for Covid-19 Pandemic.

The Covid-19 pandemic has bought a revolutionary change in how enterprises are working by keeping social distancing in mind to ensure business continuity is assured during the ongoing coronavirus era. This has paved the way for the new kind of co-workers, characterised by robotic technology and powered by Artificial Intelligence.

The year 2020 is different of sorts. Enterprises the world over did never anticipate Coronavirus to hit their functionaries so bad. To mitigate the global supply chain risks, trade pundits expect that manufacturers will insource automation to keep the supply cycle moving. As manufacturers around the world try to figure out how the business will look going forward, intelligent automation and cobot technology  both have been creating quite a stir in the enterprise circles.

The crux being, businesses which are quick to adapt and are resilient enough to understand the new demands and adapt their processes while protecting worker interests—will survive and thrive in the current crisis.

The Business Shift towards Cobots

Many C-Suite leaders across the world eco that the ongoing crisis has accelerated the need for intelligent and flexible automation. With Coronavirus in the vicinity, enterprises are seeing an uptick in the interest for collaborative robots'- credit to the social distancing requirements, and the need for rapid production line changeovers.  This brings to an interesting new beginning for the collaborative workforce, backed by AI.

Called as Cobots, they are robots who are working alongside humans to share repetitive and rule-based work in the assembly lines and the industrial warehouses. Though this change is watched with caution, cobots still suffer from an awareness challenge and need time to be programmed to suit the specific needs of the enterprise.

Cobots in the Industry-Use Cases

• DCL Logistics, a third-party logistics company headquartered in Fremont, Calif., saw a 30% increase in orders in 60 days as online business exploded. Their usual approach to meet the increase in demand would have been to hire more temporary workers. In this case, they could not as it could have increased the risk of coronavirus exposure. As an effective solution, DCL quickly deployed an additional UR10e-based fulfilment cell, this resulted in a staggering 500% increase in productivity with the ROI for each robot being three months.
• In Dallas, a small contract machine shop had to start thinking about turning away orders because of the reduced capacity, caused by the temporary labour shortage owing to lockdown and social distancing norms. As aa solution, all Axis Machining deployed eight UR10 cobots for machine tending tasks.
• Vineland, n Ala.-based HomTex decided to add the production of disposable facemasks to its usual line-up of home textiles. Reshoring PPE manufacturing to the U.S. was an important part of the company's decision. To achieve this objective, the company added 15 lines to its site in Cullman, Ala., with the capacity to make 350 million marks per year, RCM Industries, a contract manufacturer of machined die-cast parts with four production plants in the Chicago area, had a COVID outbreak in one plant that forced a temporary shutdown and required social distancing in manufacturing. startup.

The future of collaborative robots is bright. They have been deployed in several ways to help companies react to the pandemic. In the times to come, technology would play a dynamic role where the C-suite across enterprises would have to come together to rise to the challenge for a new world after the Covid-19 pandemic.