Robots in Manufacturing
Published on : Friday 09-04-2021
Noted Israeli public intellectual, historian and a professor, Yuval Noah Harari penned an interesting article recently,
Lessons from a Pandemic, published in Financial Times. In the very first paragraph Harari writes: Many people believe that the terrible toll coronavirus has taken demonstrates humanity’s helplessness in the face of nature’s might. In fact, 2020 has shown that humanity is far from helpless. Epidemics are no longer uncontrollable forces of nature. Science has turned them into a manageable challenge. Why, then, has there been so much death and suffering, he asks, and replies, “Because of bad political decisions.
The article, which makes useful reading to everyone, especially those engaged in policy making, makes very valid comparisons on how science and development has made a huge difference in case of the present pandemic and the role of digital technologies in keeping it under control. Harari says there are three main lessons from this pandemic: First, we need to safeguard our digital infrastructure. It has been our salvation during this pandemic, but it could soon be the source of an even worse disaster. Second, each country should invest more in its public health system. This seems self-evident, but politicians and voters sometimes succeed in ignoring the most obvious lesson. Third, we should establish a powerful global system to monitor and prevent pandemics.
We have been warned and not just by Harari. As successive waves – second in some cases, third in others – have engulfed cities and countries, it is increasingly clear that bad political decisions are undoing what technology has managed to control. As Harari concludes: “If Covid-19 nevertheless continues to spread in 2021 and kill millions, or if an even more deadly pandemic hits humankind in 2030, this will be neither an uncontrollable natural calamity nor a punishment from God. It will be a human failure and — more precisely — a political failure.”
Robots in Manufacturing is the theme of the Cover Story this month. But robots have long transcended the field of manufacturing and are today playing increasingly greater roles in various other sectors of the economy – Logistics and Warehousing, Packaging and Palletising, Defence and Public Safety, and Healthcare. In each of these roles, robots are precise and accurate, and capable of working round the clock without fatigue, qualities that make them ideally suitable for deployment over their human counterparts. During the Covid pandemic, robots have found newer applications, especially in service robotics, performing diverse roles like monitoring of masks, dispensing sanitisers, and even acting as companions for those isolated and hospitalised. The Cover Story and other articles by industry experts take a look at the various aspects of robotics and the impact of robots in the present times.
