Will Robots Take on The Construction Industry?
How many times have we heard politicians promising to bring manufacturing jobs back to the USA? Maybe I am over thinking it, but unless you're manufacturing some quite expensive items it will be a challenge to provide American workers minimum wage to stand on an assembly line and put together key chains and such. Come to think of it, there are a few very expensive items like all of Apple's products that have low material cost and sell for hundreds or thousands of dollars. Those components would be amazing pay a decent wage to workers and to fabricate in the us. Wait, when workers can pay a couple of hundred dollars a month to do it overseas, why fabricate here? And and so the difficulty continues.
As sales manager for Union store fixture and factory work installations I comprehend now more than ever how significant labor unions are to our work force. With many Americans working than ever we see many corporations cutting on shifts -hours so they aren't entitled to health benefits. We are learning to be a country of part time workers, which isn't going to endure us to raise families and live the American dream.
As a result of Labor Unions which we're members of, there are some safeguards.
We often sit around and discuss the future of our children as well as the new generation to what types of occupations will be accessible to them when it comes.
Many production jobs are replaced by computers and robots. 100 human workers can be replaced by a bottling plant to get a drink firm using just 2 workers that are human and a number of robotic stations to turn them on and off. More folks unemployed by technology. Many young college graduates have studied robotics in the expectations to develop a lifetime career in that field. Now, here is the kicker (and it truly is real)... You'll find firms that are actually designing robots capable of building robots!
Now let us get onto construction! We as union carpenters, while more states cover "right to work" are still feeling safe a guy with tools will always are employed. Well, I felt the same manner until I found a startling new notion: Robotic construction workers and studied the robotics industry!
Engineers provided building blueprints to the robots, and then left them alone. The TERMES built the structures by detecting and reacting to the other robots around Engineers--with no further instruction from humans.
The same construction plan could be carried out by a dozen TERMES or a hundred of them, since they function independently. The prototype TERMES use constructed bricks to construct towers, castles, and pyramids. The researchers say they could also manage simple tasks like laying sandbags down before floods.
Picture construction sites where human workers are replaced by robotics. Carpenters and construction workers can be displaced by the robots as well as the sites demanding just minimal supervision.
While this technology is still in prototype, the reality is the fact that they have created the beginning phases of its growth. Future generations may very well need to take care of this specific new technology which will threaten 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 industry....become a shop steward in order to see 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
