The level
of automation present in the low voltage and medium voltage parts of the ABB
factory really impressed me. This was my first time experiencing any kind of
manufacturing automation in this format. During our tour with the ABB engineer
in the medium voltage factory, he presented us with some specific figures about
the robots for packaging and sorting. Given the task of packaging, it took a 1
human worker 3 minutes to package a relay. The packaging robot took 54 seconds
to perform the same task. With its €200,000 price tag compared against the
salaries of the 3 equivalent workers the machine was replacing, the cost of
introducing the robot was paid back in full within 1 year. In conjunction, the
sorting robot most prominently performed its main function overnight between
the main shifts.By sorting the packaged relays for shipping throughout the
night, productivity was able to be maintained without the need to pay for
overtime, shortening work order timelines and allowing their products to be
shipped out first thing in the morning.
I really appreciated the route ABB took in introducing the robots to their work force. Instead of relieving workers of their posts entirely, ABB reallocated them to different positions to preserve the same size work force. In doing so, the company as found and established an ethical way of redistributing labor with the introduction of automation, thus providing a model for other such companies to follow. With the oncoming perceived threat of automation taking over greater amounts of the labor force in other areas of work, ABB is at the forefront of ethical redistribution of labor to maintain the size of their work force.
No comments:
Post a Comment