Increased automation: will robots solve the skills shortage?

Increased automation
Will robots solve the shortage of skilled workers?

Automation is seen as a way to replace the labor force that is lacking everywhere. Ralf Winkelmann from one of the world’s largest robot manufacturers believes that the machines can also bake bread and do laundry.

The shortage of workers is becoming increasingly noticeable in Germany. Whether hairdressers, bakeries, restaurants or even industrial companies – many companies are desperately looking for employees. Often without success. The use of robots, which is already much more common in a country like Japan, is increasingly seen as a solution to the problem. A higher number of sensors allows the machines to be used closer to people than was previously the case.

The Japanese company Fanuc, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of industrial robots, now wants to use its machines in bakeries, laundries or in agriculture and is already doing so in some cases. “We will see a special boom in Germany and Europe,” says Ralf Winkelmann, Managing Director of Fanuc Germany, in the podcast “The hour zero”. The company assumes that the number of industrial robots used worldwide will almost double within three years from the current 600,000 to one million.

Ralf Winkelmann is Managing Director of Fanuc Deutschland GmbH and Vice President of Fanuc Europe Corporation. He is also a member of the board of the VDMA association for robotics + automation

(Photo: Fanuc)

In the first pilot projects, machines automatically take the baked goods out of the refrigerated container, put them in the oven and then take them out again. In laundries, on the other hand, sheets and towels from hotels are cleaned, taken out of the machine and folded after drying. “I assume that we will see this in more and more companies in the near future,” says Winkelmann. Even direct cooperation between robots and humans is becoming increasingly conceivable outside of industrial plants. “The degree of automation will continue to rise steadily,” says Winkelmann.

Listen in the new episode of “The Zero Hour

  • Which jobs robots destroy
  • What Japan and Germany have in common
  • What robots could do on the farm

All episodes can be found directly at RTL+, Apple or Spotify or via Google.

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