Robotics barriers at Danish small and medium-sized enterprises are often based on outdated perceptions
Every other production company in Denmark still does not use robots in the workplace. Small and medium-sized enterprises especially hesitate, while we increasingly fall behind. Denmark has fallen out of the global top 10 in terms of the deployment of robots and is now in 12th position, with 234 robots per 10,000 employees in industry. In 2014 – just seven years ago – Denmark occupied a healthy 5th position globally.??
Fortunately, there is plenty of potential for Denmark catching up with the frontrunners in the global robotics deployment race. Because the barriers are mental and not as many people would believe, financial or technological.?
It’s not worth it. We can’t figure it out. We don’t have the time to do it.?
There are many objections to robots, but often they are based on outdated knowledge: It no longer costs a fortune to get started. Complete robot solutions can be rented and leased as required. Software automation eliminates a great deal of time spent on the actual installation process. And there are many more types of work tasks, which so far, have been carried out manually using various tools, equipment and auxiliary equipment, which can now be automated much more simply: For example, screwing, grinding, polishing, packing, pelletizing, machine maintenance, sorting, quality checking, measuring and deburring. In addition, automation no longer requires large-scale production to be viable, because modern robot applications are designed to be guided to changeover from one series of tasks to another.?
Back in the 1980s, when the PC became a common tool, Danes took courses in how to use a computer. We do not do that today because the computer is much easier and more logical to use. The precise same development is now happening in robotics solutions. You no longer have to be a programmer to be able to automate manual work tasks.?
Automation is making leaps and bounds, and you just need to get started. All of us gain superpowers when we use robots and artificial intelligence. And we need those superpowers in a time when companies and their employees struggle on a daily basis to overcome all kinds of crises and challenges that impact jobs and homelife.?It is a fact that the companies that are automating are the companies that are expanding and creating more jobs. The ones who do not, will die.
Here in Denmark, industry and the trade unions have a common mission to increase the level of automation in the Danish workplace. Without robots we cannot manufacture competitively enough, not if we are to retain high wages and a well-functioning welfare state.?
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Only nine percent of the world’s automation potential has been realized today.
New technologies have always changed jobs and work routines. Most often for the better, freeing people from having to work like machines and thus creating a healthier working environment. Denmark is the European champion in high wages, and we can only stay that way by automating our work more and more.?
Only nine percent of the world’s automation potential has been realized today. It is estimated that there are 15 million manual workstations here in Europe that could beneficially use cobots to ease the burden of employees. In 2050, Europe will have 95 million fewer employable people than today, and already today there is a serious labor shortage in many industries. This is shown by analyses carried out by International Federation of Robotics and Boston Consulting Group.
With the disastrously low number of people applying to join vocational training courses this year, things are looking bleak in terms of solving industry’s shortage of skilled workers. It is worth noting that young people have long since seen the light when it comes to automation, and they find working in production that itself is helping to optimize via new technologies, as something that is deeply motivating.?