Robotics shouldn’t be considered “an alternative form of labour”, says Honeywell

In July, chip giant Intel invested $9 million in Figure, a startup striving to build AI-enabled autonomous humanoid robots. These robots aim to alleviate labour shortages in key industries, particularly within warehousing and logistics — a critical sector that has experienced a shortfall of available workers across Europe and the UK.

According to a recent report from SCALA, more than half of businesses are planning to invest in warehouse innovations to tackle gaps in labour availability. However, it is crucial that companies investing in warehouse automation focus on these investments as a way of supporting workers, rather than replacing labour — a growing concern with the development of increasingly human-like robotics.

Dr Thomas Evans, CTO, Honeywell Robotics, comments on the current state of warehouse robotics:

“Currently in logistics robotics, we are seeing innovation in sensing and vision, machine learning and artificial intelligence, connectivity and computing power. Due to these developments, robots have become more capable, with advanced computer vision solutions creating increased awareness, problem-solving abilities, cloud and sensory data pipelines. We’re starting to see these innovations adopted to higher levels in warehouses in the form of depalletising robots, loading and unloading robots, and advanced high-density storage and fulfillment solutions.

“While there will be a need for humanoid robots once their capability converges closer to that of a manual worker or robotics such as the autonomous depalletiser, factors like speed, rate, payload capacity are far from where they need to be to apply them in the warehouse. As investments in R&D continue, technology will continue to surpass itself and warehouses will see advanced automation continually replace additional manual tasks in DCs and warehouses where we often see labour shortages. While there are companies that are creating humanoid robotics, we are still several years from seeing any large-scale adoption.

“Many people fear that greater integration of robotics within warehouses will negatively impact jobs in the industry. In fact, the job demand in the warehouse and distribution space outnumbers the available labour to fill the roles. Additionally, despite many people thinking that the expansion of robotics and advanced automation will lead to the reduction of warehouse jobs, the opposite can be true. Instead of replacing workers, automated systems and robots should be used to reposition manual labour and automate repetitive tasks that are not the most effective or favourable use of employee time.

“The value is not in replacing workers, but in augmenting their abilities and upskilling to address more creative or challenging issues. We should think of robotics as tools that workers can use to be more effective, rather than as an alternative form of labour.”