Will Robots Take Over The Construction Industry?

How many times have we heard politicians promising to bring back manufacturing jobs to the USA? Maybe I'm over thinking it, but unless you're making some quite expensive items it's going to be a challenge to offer American workers minimum wage to stand on an assembly line and put together such and key chains. Come to think of it, there are some very expensive items like all of Apple's products that sell for thousands or hundreds of dollars and have low material price. Those parts could be excellent to manufacture in America and pay a decent wage to workers. Wait, when American workers can pay a couple of hundred dollars a month to do it overseas, why make here? And and so the problem continues.

As sales manager for Union store fixture and mill work facilities I understand more than ever important labor unions are to our work force. With many Americans working harder than we see many corporations cutting shifts -hours so they're not eligible for health benefits. We are becoming a nation of part time workers, which is not likely to endure us to raise families and live the American dream.

Thanks to Labor Unions which we're members of, there are several safeguards for us.

We talk about the future of our children as well as the new generation to what sorts of occupations will likely be available to them in regards and often sit around. Technology comes up a lot. It is a growth industry, not only in the USA but abroad as well.

Computers and robots have replaced many manufacturing jobs. 100 human workers can be replaced by a bottling plant for a beverage company using a series of robotic stations and just 2 human workers to turn them on and off. More individuals unemployed by technology. Robotics have been studied by many young college graduates in the hopes to develop a vocation because field. You can find companies which are actually designing robots building robots that are capable of!

Now let's get onto construction! Well, I felt exactly the same manner until I discovered a startling new theory: Robotic construction workers and studied the robotics business!

Engineers provided construction patterns to the robots, and after that left them alone. The TERMES built the structures by responding to the other robots around Engineers--with no additional instruction from humans and observing.

The same building plan could be carried out by a dozen TERMES or a hundred of them, because Engineers operate independently. Because their directives are so easy--put down a brick that fits in the building plan, where no one else has set one down- little processing power is required by them. Bricks that are built are used by the prototype TERMES to build towers, castles, and pyramids. The researchers say they may also manage simple jobs like laying sandbags down before floodings.

Picture building sites where robotics replace human workers. Construction workers and carpenters can be displaced by the robots and also the websites demanding only minimal oversight.

The reality is the fact that they've successfully created the beginning stages of this technology's development, while it is still in prototype. Future generations may very well need to address this new technology that will endanger those of us middle-aged carpenters' support, while they may well not need to contend with R2D2 taking over our jobs.

My advice to those up-and-comers in the business....become a shop steward so you can watch over the robot workers!

There is an interesting video put out by Harvard that shows these Termes in action: http://youtu.be/LFwk303p0zY

About the author: Martin Chase is National Sales Director at Store Force, Inc., leading Union store fixture installers providing clients with fixture and mill work installations around the country. Martin can be reached at 631-672-3150 or by email at: unioninstallers@gmail.com