Robotics and the skilled labour gap: How humanoid robots can augment the workforce

Naturally, there is always a concern that robots will take peoples jobs. But for businesses that are facing an increasingly difficult skills and labour landscape, there is a real need in some instances to use robots to do more with the people they already have!

Across manufacturing, logistics, construction, hospitality, healthcare and other industries, organisations are facing a growing challenge: there simply aren't enough people with the right skills to meet demand.

This isn't necessarily about unemployment. An ageing workforce, changing demographics, skills shortages, hard to fill roles and growing demand for specialist expertise are creating a gap between the work organisations need to do and the people available to do it. This is where robotics, and in particular humanoids, can have an important role to play.

That doesn’t mean removing people from the workforce. Many organisations have more work than they have people to complete it. A manufacturer may have orders it cannot fulfil because it cannot recruit enough operators. A warehouse may struggle to cover shifts. A hospitality business may be unable to find enough staff during peak periods. These aren't necessarily jobs that organisations want to eliminate, they are just jobs they need people to do. In essence, they need to extend the capacity of their current workforce.

Humanoid robots are still a relatively new technology, and there aren't yet decades of data proving that humanoids have transformed entire workforces. But we are beginning to see something important in the earliest real-world deployments. Humanoids are being introduced to take on specific repetitive, physically demanding or ergonomically challenging tasks, while people remain responsible for the wider operation.

A good example of how robotics can augment rather than replace skilled workers comes from Extend Robotics' work with Leyland Trucks. In the trial, a robotic system was used to complete a Master Service Disconnect task, a process that would traditionally require a skilled human operator. Rather than removing the human from the process, Extend Robotics used its teleoperation technology to enable an operator to control the robot remotely and teach it how to perform the task.

The result was significant: the task was successfully completed after just two days of training, with the approach reducing training time and associated costs by more than 60%. The important point is what this demonstrates about the future of work. The technology didn't replace the expertise of the human operator, it captured and extended it, whilst reducing the risk to the human.

A skilled person was able to demonstrate the task through the robotic system, creating a pathway for the robot to learn and subsequently perform the task with increasing autonomy.

This creates a powerful model for addressing the skilled labour gap - the robot performed one defined part of a much larger production process.

To read our case study on Leyland Trucks and how they used robots to reduce risks and enable their workforce, please visit: https://www.extendrobotics.com/post/extend-robotics-accelerates-robotic-learning-for-real-world-industrial-automation-in-collaboration