Polar Manufacturing has been making ​metallic ​hinges, locks, and brackets ​in south Chicago for greater than 100 years. Some of the corporate’s metallic presses—hulking nice machines that loom over a employee—date from the 1950s. Last 12 months, to fulfill rising demand amid a scarcity of staff, Polar employed its first robot worker.

The robotic arm performs a easy, repetitive job: lifting a piece of metallic into a press, which then bends the metallic into a new form. And like a individual, the robotic employee will get paid for the hours it really works.

​Jose Figueroa​, who manages Polar’s manufacturing line, says the robotic, which is leased from a firm referred to as Formic, prices the equal of $eight per hour, in contrast with a minimal wage of $15 per hour for a human worker. Deploying the robotic allowed a human employee to do totally different work, growing output, Figueroa says.

“Smaller companies sometimes suffer because they can’t spend the capital to invest in new technology,” Figueroa says. “We’re just struggling to get by with the minimum wage increase.”

The fact that Polar didn’t need to pay $100,000 upfront to buy the robot, and then spend more money to get it programmed, was crucial. Figueroa says that he’d like to see 25 robots on the line within five years. He doesn’t envisage replacing any of the company’s 70 employees, but says Polar may not need to hire new workers.

Formic buys standard robot arms, and leases them along with its own software. They’re among a small but growing number of robots finding their way into workplaces on a pay-as-you-go basis.

The pandemic has led to shortages of workers across numerous industries, but many smaller firms are reluctant to write big checks for automation.

“Anything that can help reduce labor count or the need for labor is obviously a plus at this particular time,” says Steve Chmura, chief working officer at Georgia Nut, a confectionery firm in Skokie, Illinois, that has been struggling to seek out workers and in addition rents robots from Formic.

The robot-as-employee approach could help automation spread into smaller businesses more rapidly by changing the economics. Companies such as Formic see an opportunity to build large businesses by serving many small firms. Many are mining the data they collect to help refine their products and improve customers’ operations.

Shahan Farshchi, an investor in Formic, likens the state of robotics today to computing before personal computers took off, when only rich companies could afford to invest in massive computer systems that required considerable expertise to program and maintain. Personal computing was enabled by companies including Intel and Microsoft that made the technology cheap and easy to use. “We’re entering that same time now with robots,” Farshchi says.

Robots have been taking on new jobs in recent years as the technology becomes more capable as well as easier and cheaper to deploy. Some hospitals use robots to deliver supplies and some offices employ robotic security guards. The companies behind these robots often provide them on a rental basis.

Jeff Burnstein, president of the Association for Advancing Automation, an trade physique, says rising demand for automation amongst smaller corporations is driving curiosity in robotics as a service. The method has seen specific traction amongst warehouse success companies, Burnstein says.



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