Can a Robot Make Construction More Inclusive?
For Construction Inclusion Week (Oct. 17-21, 2022), Canvas asked Superintendent/Quality Manager Theresa Arevalo if robotics could actually make construction more inclusive. Her answer? Absolutely. In fact, she's downright optimistic about the topic.
Here are Theresa's own thoughts on how robotics can bring more women into the construction trades:
By now, you’ve read all the headlines about the construction industry labor shortage that describe how more people are leaving the trades than joining them. These news articles also talk about why people are exiting (or not entering) jobs in the construction trades:
But there’s another reason for the construction labor shortage: the trades have been slow to welcome a huge portion of the workforce–women.
I’ve been in the drywall finishing trade for decades now. In fact, as one of the first women to become a taper in San Francisco, I helped open the door for women in the trades.
For years, I had to work smart and fast just to be treated with a base level of respect. On every job. Those years were tough (sometimes unbearably tough).
Things improved over the years, and I began earning the respect of my coworkers and supervisors. Through grit, determination, and a sincere love of this trade and its tradespeople, I eventually became a supervisor myself, as well as a union leader.
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About five years ago, I became one of the first employees at Canvas, a company that has developed (and is now deploying across the country) a robot that does drywall mudding and sanding. I was ready for a new challenge. But I also believed in how this new machine could help make the work safer, and?less strenuous and stressful for tapers.
Our robot puts itself, instead of the worker, in harm’s way. It can do high work. It captures 99.9% of the dust generated by sanding. It does a lot of the repetitive work that causes tapers to develop musculoskeletal injuries.
Here’s something else the machine does: It opens the door for more women to join the trade of drywall finishing.
Women can operate our robot just as easily as men can. Technology eliminates some of that hard core labor and could be a huge benefit to an industry that is struggling to find enough skilled workers to complete their jobs.?
The number of contractors who cannot find enough skilled workers has risen to 91%. This pushes the door wide open for robotics, which could generate a whole new group of potential employees for contractors–women who are looking for challenging, well-paying and safe jobs, as well as the opportunity to retire with financial security and dignity.