Exploratory Workshop on the Social

Impacts of Robotics: Summary and Issues

February 1982

NTIS order #PB82-184862
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 82-600515

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents,

U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402
Preface

Advanced computer and communication technology is providing a wide

assortment of new tools for improving industrial productivity by automating

manufacturing. Robotics technology is an important component of modern automation technology, one in which U.S. industry is vitally interested.

On July 31, 1981, the Office of Technology Assessment held an exploratory

workshop to examine the state of robotics technology and possible public policy

issues of interest to Congress that may arise from its use. The workshop participants included researchers in robotics technology, representatives from robot

manufacturing firms, and representatives from firms that use robotics technology. The principal goals of the workshop were the following:

●

●

●

●

assess the state of robotics technology;

examine the structure of the robotics market;

determine the relationship of robotics to other new automation technology; and

determine whether significant Federal policy issues were likely to be

raised.

This report contains a summary of the results of the workshop along with

copies of four background papers that were used as starting points for the

discussion. The workshop was exploratory in nature, and OTA does not at this

point take any position on the merits of the issues discussed or on their worthiness for future assessment.

Director
Workshop Participants

Roy Amara

Institute for the Future

Paul Aron

Daiwa Securities America, Inc.

James K. Bakken

Ford Motor Co.

Donald C. Burnham

Westinghouse Electric Corp.

Laura Conigliaro

Bache Halsey Stuart Shields, Inc.

Robert W. Duffy

Honeywell, Inc.

Joseph Engelberger

Unimation Corp. & Consolidated Control Corp.

Donald F. Ephlin

International Union United Auto Workers

Bela Gold

Case Western Reserve University

Margaret Graham

Harvard Business School

John Kendrick

George Washington University

Robert B. Kurtz

General Electric Co.

Ronald L. Larsen

National Aeronautics and

Space Administration

Alvin P. Lehnerd

Black & Decker Manufacturing Co.

Eli S. Lustgarten

Paine Webber Mitchell Hutchins, Inc.

Reginald Newell

International Association of Machinists

Gordon I. Robertson

Control Automation, Inc.

Bernard M. Sallott

Robot Institute of America

Harley Shaiken

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Ken Susnjara

Thermwood Corp.

iv
OTA Robotics Staff

John Andelin, Assistant Director, OTA

Science, Information and Natural Resources Division

Sam Hale, Interim Program Manager

Communications and Information Technology Program

Frederick W. Weingarten Marjory Blumenthal

Zalman Shaven Charles Kimzey*

Administrative Staff

Elizabeth Emanuel, Administrative Assistant

Jeanette Contee Shirley Gayheart

Contractors and Consultants

James Albus, National Bureau of Standards

Paul Aron, Diawa Securities

Bela Gold, Case Western Reserve University

Eli Lustgarten, Paine Webber Mitchell Hutchins

OTA Publishing Office

John C. Holmes, Publishing Officer

John Bergling Kathie S. Boss Debra M. Datcher Joe Henson

*On detail from the Department of Commerce.
Contents

Chapter Page

I. INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Workshop Goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

II. ROBOT TECHNOLOGY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Roots of Robotics Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Definition of Robots.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Technological Context of Robots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

The Robot Market. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Technology and Market Issues. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

111. SOCIAL ISSUES... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Productivity and Capital Formation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . 13

Labor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Education and Training. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

International Impacts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Other Applications. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

REFERENCES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Appendixes

A. Workshop Issues List of Social Impacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

B. Commissioned Background Papers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

l. Paul Aron Report No. 25. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

2. industrial Robots and Productivity Improvement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

3. Robotics, Programable Automation and Improving Competitiveness. 90

4. Robotics and Its Relationship to the Automated Factory. . .........118

vii
I ●

Introduction
Introduction

Background

The topic of industrial robots has recently

been given increased attention. Articles in

the technical and popular press have discussed the potential of robots to boost U.S.

industrial productivity and enhance international competitiveness (1,2). Others have

concentrated on the effects of robots on employment and their potential to change the

workplace environment and alter the nature

of work (3,4).

This same interest in robotics technology

has been expressed informally to OTA by

congressional staff from several committees.

Other OTA studies in such areas as information policy, educational technology, innovation, and industrial competitiveness have

touched on the impacts of robotics technology in light of those issues.

To date, a primary thrust of domestic U.S.

interest in robotics seems to be the belief

that robots, along with other new automation technology will be an important tool for

improving the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturing. The use of robots may lower production costs, improve the quality of manufactured goods, and reduce workplace hazards. A clear theme has been the concern

that foreign competitors may be gaining a

significant edge over the United States both

in using this new production technology and

in establishing a competitive position in the

potentially major export market for robots.

Some writers have also expressed concern

about possible impacts of this technology on

workers as it becomes more widely used.

They have stressed possible unemployment,

the need for new and different skills, and effects on the work environment.

Abroad, interest in robotics has been intense. England, Japan, Germany, Norway,

Italy, and Sweden have initiated government and private efforts to develop robotics

technology and stimulate its use in manufacturing. Some of these countries have also

undertaken studies to assess ways in which

automation may create or eliminate jobs.

In response to congressional interest in

public policy issues related to robotics, the

rapid advances in computer technology and

its applications, and public concern about

the state of the U.S. industrial economy,

OTA sponsored an exploratory workshop to

discuss the future of industrial robotics and

its likely impact on public policy. The purpose of this paper is to summarize the results of this effort and to make available several informal papers prepared for that workshop. Most of the information is based on

discussions at the workshop, commissioned

papers, * and other material collected prior to

the workshop.

The summary presents background information and identifies key questions and issues that were raised to the OTA staff during the course of the project. It does not contain analysis or evaluation of these issues. It

also does not present any options for Federal

policy or analysis of such options.

*Attached to this report as app. B.

3
4 . Ch. I—introduction

Workshop Goals

The workshop had several goals:

●

assess the current and likely future

state of robotics technology;

examine the structure of the robotics

market, including domestic and foreign ●

users and producers;

determine how robotics relates to other

manufacturing technologies such as

computer-aided design and flexible

manufacturing systems; and

determine whether significant Federal

policy issues were likely to be raised by

the expected growth in industrial

robotics. ●

General agreement was found on the following points:

● the use of robots for industrial automation is growing rapidly; robots are likely

to be heavily used by the end of the

decade in many settings;

robotics, while perhaps the most visible

and dramatic one, exists in a wide spectrum of technologies that contribute to

the automation of manufacturing;

any major impacts on productivity and

employment within this decade will be

attributable to the general trend toward

automation (including robotics), computer-aided design, the use of information

systems to control operations and support managements, and the integration

of all these technologies into flexible

manufacturing systems; and

robots, themselves, may have important

impacts in the long run as they evolve

toward intelligent, stand-alone devices

that can perform a variety of complex

tasks, and thereby substantially broaden their range of potential application.
II ●

Robot Technology
11 ●

Robot Technology

Roots of Robotics Technology

The paper by Albus (see app. B, item 2)

surveys the state of robotics technology.

Robots have a dual technological ancestry

that has an important effect on discussions

about what they are, what they can do, and

how they are likely to develop. The two ancestral lines are: 1) industrial engineering

automation technology, a discipline that

stretches historically over a century; and 2)

computer science and artificial intelligence

technology that is only a few decades old.

Ideas about the nature of robots differ

according to the importance given to these

two technological roots.

Most modern industrial robots are extensions of automated assembly-line technology. This form of automation has not historically depended on computers, although microelectronics provides a powerful new tool

for extending its capabilities. In this view

modern industrial robots are closely related

to numerically controlled machine tools.

From such a perspective, robotics is

already approaching the state of a mature

technology. Over the next decade, the most

important impacts of robotics on the economy and work force cannot be considered

separately from the impacts of industrial

automation in general.

On the other hand, modern computer technology may provide future robots with new

“intelligent” capabilities such as visual and

tactile perception, mobility, or understanding instructions given in a high-level, natural

language, such as “Assemble that pump!”

The commercial availability of such capabilities may be one or two decades away.

In the view of some computer science researchers, robotics as a technology that will

have significant social impact is still in its infancy. They estimate that, given sufficient

research support, they could produce a flexible, intelligent robot for the market within

this decade. A robot of this type will be able

to move freely about an unstructured environment, and perform a wide variety of tasks

on command with minimal reprogramming

time.

This view stresses the need for continuing

basic research in computer science related to

robotics, particularly in “artificial intelligence. ” Robots are seen as “stand-alone,”

reprogramable devices, capable of performing many tasks other than large-scale assembly line applications, for example, smallscale batch manufacturing, mining, or equipment repair.

Which of these views is most pertinent in

terms of current policy issues will depend, in

part, on whether such an “intelligent” robot

would be economically feasible in the near

future and whether it would meet a significant need in the industrial sector. It seems

likely, in fact, that both types of robotics

technology will eventually become important, but that their economic and social impacts will differ to the extent that they are

used for different purposes in different environments. Furthermore, the time scale for

widespread adoption will be significantly

later for the “intelligent” machines.

7
8 ● Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robot/es

Definition of Robots

It is difficult to establish a usable, generally agreed on definition of a robot. Experts

use different approaches to defining the

term. The problem of definition is further

compounded for the public by images shaped

by science fiction movies that bear no resemblance to robots currently on the market.

At the same time, it is important to have

some common understanding of the term in

order to define the state of the art, to project

future capabilities, and to compare efforts

between countries. Depending on the definition used, for example, estimates of the number of robots installed in Japan vary from

3,000 to over 47,000 (5). This variation stems

in part from the difficulty of distinguishing

simple robots from the closely related “hard

automation”* technologies for transferring

material.

The Robot Institute of America, a trade

association of robot manufacturers and

users, defines robots as follows:

A robot is a reprogramable multifunctional

manipulator designed to move material,

parts, tools, or specialized devices, through

variable programed motions for the performance of a variety of tasks.

This definition seems to describe the current

state of the technology and is generally accepted by U.S. industry.

Industrial robots have three principal components:

1. one or more arms, usually situated on a

fixed base, that can move in several

directions;

2. a manipulator, the business end of the

robot, is the “hand” that holds the tool

or the part to be worked; and

3. a controller that gives detailed movement instructions.

Computer scientists add to this list a few

capabilities that are not generally commercially available today, but that might be part

of a general purpose robot of the future (6).

They include the following:

4.

5.

*The term "hard automation” refers to traditional custom

engineered automated lines. Although they may contain

some standard components, they are built to accomplish one

specific set of tasks and often must be completely torn down

and rebuilt when the manufacturing process or product

design changes.

6.

locomotion some means of moving

around in a specified environment;

perception, the ability to sense by sight,

touch, or some other means, its environment, and to understand it in terms of a

task—e.g., the ability to recognize an

obstruction or find a designated object

in an arbitrary location; and

heuristic problem-solving, the ability to

plan and direct its actions to achieve

higher order goals.

Technological Context of Robots

The principal technological context of robotics is the field of industrial automation.

Most experts on industrial automation state

that robots are only one component of a

large collection of related devices and techniques that form the technological base of industrial automation (7). This view was expressed both at the workshop and in discussions of experts with OTA staff. Mechanical

devices that performed tasks similar to

those done by modern industrial robots have

existed for centuries. The principal difference is that, whereas so-called “hard

automation” is custom designed to a particular task, robots are standardized, but

flexible and programmable units that can be

installed in different environments with

much less customization. (Some adaptation
Ch. II—Robot Technology ● 9

is still often required). Clearly, there is a

tradeoff between the efficiency of hard automation and the flexibility of robots.

Since machinery will be integrated with

the total design of a factory it may not be

useful to distinguish robotics as an independent technology. A fully automated factory of the future might include the following components:

●

●

●

a computer-aided-design (CAD) system

that provides a tool for engineers to develop new products on a computer using

an electronic display screen. The data

base generated by the computer during

the design phase is then used by other

computerized parts of the factory;

numerically controlled machine tools

and other automated devices that fabricate components of the product, transport, and assemble them following

instructions generated by the CAD

system;

robots, also operating under computer

●

materials from station to station, operate tools such as welders and spray

painters, and perform some assembly

tasks; and

computerized information systems that

keep track of inventory, trace the flow of

material through the plant, diagnose

problems, and even correct them when

possible.

All of the above technologies are currently

under development and being used in some

form. They will likely evolve into components of a fully automated flexible manufacturing facility.

Thus, there appear to be two parallel technological tracks along which industrial robots are likely to develop: 1) stand-alone

standardized units that will have varying

uses in many different environments; and 2)

robotics technology that is integrated into

complete factories that will, themselves, be

flexible. Any assessment of the impacts of

robotics would need to consider both types.

generated instructions, that transfer

The Robot Market

The current structure of the industrial ro- facturing such as mining or equipment

bot market—producers, users, and inves- repair.

tors–is discussed in detail in the background paper by Lustgarten (app. B, item 4). Domestic robot manufacturers appear to

fall into four grous:

The principal uses of robots today are spot

welding, spray painting, and a variety of so- 1.

called “pick and place” operations that involve simply picking up an object and putting it with a specific orientation in a pre- 2.

determined spot.

The automobile industry is the largest

user of industrial robots, in terms of the 3.

value of equipment installed, and probably

will continue to be over the next decade.

Other major current and potential future

users are summarized in the Lustgarten paper. Once again, these estimates consider the

industrial robot as an extension of manufacturing equipment. They do not consider

possible new applications outside of manuTraditional machine tool manufacturers such as Cincinnati-Milacron that

have developed a robot product line.

Established firms such as Unimation

that have specialized in industrial robots.

Large manufacturing firms, such as

General Electric and, in particular, electronic computing equipment manufacturers such as Texas Instruments, that

plan to be major users of robots and that

have decided to build their own. These

firms may choose either to retain the

technology for their own use or to market their robots externally.
10 . Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

4. Small entrepreneurial firms that devel- innovative new types of robots will come

op new, innovative robots. This type of from the entrepreneurs, while the large firms

firm has been important in many sec- will have the capital and capacity to produce

tors of the information industry, and and market large quantities of heavy equipcould well play an important role in ment. Also significant in this regard is the

robotics. trend, common with most high technology

The relative importance in the market- firms, toward acquisition of small, innovative firms by larger industrial firms seeking place of these different types of firms will depend on and, in turn, influence the evolution either to diversify or to integrate their traditional product lines with new of robotics technology. The history of the technologies.

microelectronics market suggests that many

Technology and Market Issues

A number of issues concerning the robot

industry were identified in this project:

●

●

Industrial organization.—What types

of firms will play the most significant

role in the production of robots and in

innovation? Will robot use and production be concentrated in a few large companies? Will a variety of robotics products be available for many applications

by diverse types and sizes of users?

What will be the effects on the financial

health of different types of potential

producers and users?

Research and development (R&D).–

Should R&D stress applications or

should it focus on fundamental work

aiming at significant new breakthrough

in the state of the art? What role should

the Federal Government play in funding this research via agencies such as

the National Science Foundation?

What type of work should be pursued in

Government research labs such as the

National Bureau of Standards, and at

what level should it be funded? What

additional policies, if any, would be required to stimulate R&D in the private

Government use. —Are there particularly important applications of robots in

the Federal Government that should be

explored and developed? Experts at the

workshop mentioned in particular defense applications and uses of robots

for space exploration and oceanographic work.

Definition. –The question of defining

robotics and their context, while not a

policy issue per se, is an important

problem if any Federal action is contemplated to encourage their use or develop any R&D program. How the technology is defined may well determine

the type of industry that will be helped

by the programs, and influence the

structure of the U.S. robotics industry.

Standards. –Should the Government

encourage the establishment of technical standards for robotics devices and

components? Should standards be set

for interfacing between robots and

other automation and information technology? Would standards encourage

the development of the robot industry

and the diffusion of the technology, or

would they prematurely freeze the state

sector? of the art? -
III ●

Social Issues
III ●

Social Issues

In addition to the technology and market

issues above, the workshop panel identified a

number of social impacts. This list is provided in appendix A. Many of the issues on

the list were offered without much comment;

and, as would be expected, the panel members differed in their opinions of the priority

of the various issues and their importance to

the Federal Government.

Combining the workshop results with

other information collected and evaluated in

terms of congressional interests, OTA identified five sets of issues.

● Productivity and capital formation

 Labor

–Unemployment, displacement, or job

shifting

–Positive or negative effects on the

quality of working environment (such

as exposure to hazards, job boredom,

and employer/employee relations)

 Education and training

–Need for technological specialists

–Need for a technologically literate

work force

—Need for retraining workers

 International impacts

–Import/export of robotics technology

–Contribution to economic competitiveness

● Other applications

–Military

–Space

–Oceans

Each of these sets of issues is discussed

briefly below.

Productivity and Capital Formation

As stated in the introduction, much of the

literature on robotics contains reference to

the contribution robotics can be expected to

make toward improving industrial productivity. Since a major national concern is the

strengthening of U.S. industry, it is important to examine this question.

No answers were agreed on by the workshop participants. However, some experts

did warn about making simplistic assumptions that exaggerate the importance of robotics, by itself, in improving productivity.

Two reasons were offered:

1.

2.

Robotics is only one part of a wide array

of technologies available to automate

manufacturing and to increase industrial productivity.

Productivity is a subtle and complex

concept with several definitions and

measurements. (This is developed in

some detail in the paper by Gold; see

app. B, item 3.) Furthermore, even after

some specific definition is chosen, industrial productivity depends on many factors that interact with one another. It is

difficult, hence, to attribute productivity improvements to any single technology.

These warnings do not suggest that robotics is not an important production technology. Most experts seem to feel that it is.

However, they stated that there are dangers

inherent in taking an overly narrow definition of the technology when assessing impacts on industrial productivity.

While most applications of robots to date

have been made by large firms, the future

diffusion of robotics and related technologies

can also affect small businesses in several

ways. For example, there are likely to be

13
14 ● Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

many new business opportunities for small

firms to develop and produce software and

specialized types of equipment. Secondly, it

can be argued that robotics and flexible

automation may in some cases lower the

minimum scale for efficient production, and

therefore that new manufacturing opportunities could be created for small businesses.

Third, the adoption of robotics and related

technologies by large firms may foreclose

some manufacturing opportunities for small

firms that cannot afford to invest in new

equipment. This situation frequently arises

when major equipment technologies change.

Capital formation is another issue that

was raised in the workshop and is discussed

in the appended Lustgarten paper. The important questions seemed to be whether

there would be adequate capital for three

purposes:

1. To fund the modernization of industrial

plants for the use of automation technology. The financial need would be particularly great if it were necessary to

rebuild entire plants in order to make

the most effective use of robotics.

2. To fund the construction and expansion

of plants to produce robots in quantities

3.

necessary to have a significant economic

impact.

To fund entrepreneurs who wish to develop new types of robots for new applications. The importance of the availability of this type of capital depends on

how important it is that the technology

be pushed forward rapidly.

No one in the workshop expressed the view

that lack of capital is an important impediment to the growth of the robotics industry

or to the expansion of the use of robots in

manufacturing. However, some panelists observed that a tax policy that encourages

such investment would be an important

stimulus.

There was some disagreement about the

availability of private capital to fund R&D.

Robot manufacturers maintained that they

were investing large amounts of money in

R&D. Other experts suggested that these

expenditures were principally aimed at

short-term product development and adapting existing products to specific tasks. There

was a difference of opinion about the definition of R&D and concerning the amount of

emphasis that needs to be placed on longterm research v. short-term product development.

Labor

Unemployment is an issue that is con- ●

stantly raised in discussions about the social

impact of robots, but that seems in this context not to be well understood as yet or even

to have been widely studied by labor econo- ●

mists in the United States (8). The discussion at the workshop reflected a wide variety

of opinion about the effects on jobs, dif- ●

ferences that seemed to be confounded by a

number of conceptual problems.

The effects of new technology on the

relative proportion of machinery to

workers (the capital-labor ratio) in a

given industry.

The extent of change in prices and production volumes for U.S. firms once the

new technology is in use.

The supply of qualified workers with

specific job skills in a given industry.

Productivity improvements resulting from fall because of productivity improvements,

the use of robotics and related technologies which, by definition, enable fewer workers to

can affect labor in a number of ways. These produce a given volume of product. U.S. emeffects depend on factors such as the follow- ployment in a given industry may remain

ing: constant or rise, however, if productivity im-
Ch. Ill—Social Issues ● 1 5

provements are combined with increases in

production volume. Effective labor compensation may rise or fall if productivity improvements lead to shorter workweeks

and/or new product prices, depending in

large part on production volume and profitability. Finally, average wage levels will

change with changes in the necessary mix of

worker skills resulting from the implementation of robotics and related technologies.

Definitions of unemployment, like those of

productivity, require distinctions between

short-term and persistent job loss, or between true unemployment (job loss) and displacement (job shift).

For some time, most experts in the United

States have argued that more jobs are created by new technology than are eliminated.

However, if these jobs are in different industries and/or require different skills, the

effect on an individual who has been replaced

by automation can be traumatic.

Production and servicing of robots and

related technologies will create new jobs.

The number of jobs created and the rate at

which they appear will depend both on the

growth rate of the robot industry and the

degree to which robot manufacture and repair are, themselves, automated.

Additionally, the effects of modern microelectronics will be to lower cost, improve performance, and widen the availability of

automation technology substantially. Negative impact on employment that, in the past,

has been small enough to be insignificant or

undetectable may be much larger in the

future.

In order to assess the effects of automation on future employment levels, a baseline

must be established against which job loss

or gain can be measured. This baseline could

be a simple extrapolation of current trends.

But it may also need to be adjusted to reflect

two other effects:

● Virtual employment, domestic jobs that

were not explicitly eliminated, but that

would have existed were robots not installed.

Virtual unemployment, domestic jobs

that would have-been lost if the plant

had not responded to domestic and international competition by automating.

As the case with productivity, it is difficult to attribute employment effects to any

single component of an entire range of improvements in the manufacturing process, in

this case robotics. Any examination of the

effects of robots on jobs would need to consider, at least in part, a much broader context of automation technology.

There seemed to be two principal sets of

questions concerning unemployment. These

questions are different in their focus, in their

implication for Federal policy, and in the

data collection necessary to analyze them:

1. Will the United States experience a

2

long-term rise in the real unemployment

rate due to the introduction of robotics

and other automation? If so, will these

effects be differentially severe by geographical location, social class, education level, race, sex, or other characteristics? What might be the employment

penalty of not automating?

Will the use of robots create displacement effects over the next decade? In

what ways will these effects be specific

to particular industry classes, geographical locations, or types of jobs? How will

they effect labor/management negotiations?

Quality of working environment is another

issue that was identified. If robots are

employed principally for jobs that are unpleasant or dangerous and if the new jobs

created by robotics are better, the quality of

worklife will improve. Productivity increases

may also, in the longer term, result in a

shorter, more flexibly scheduled workweek.

New forms of computer-based automation

may in many cases relieve job boredom and

resulting worker dissatisfaction that many

management experts have been concerned
16 . Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

with. Workers may be able to make use of

more complex skills and perform a greater

variety of tasks. For instance, they may be

able to follow the assembly of a product from

beginning to end and assume greater individual responsibility for the quality of the

result.

The human working environment can also

be improved by segregating processes that

create hazardous working conditions (such

as heat or exposure to chemicals) from the

section of the factory occupied by humans,

and staffing them with robots. Furthermore,

equipping a worker with a robot helper for

strenuous activities not only eases job

stress, but opens up employment opportunities to those who have physical handicaps or

other limitations.

Whether these benefits are realized depends, in part, on the particular ways in

which industry uses the technology. Many

labor experts are concerned that some uses

of robots will produce effects on the working

environment that will not be so salutary. For

example, some argue that one long-term effect of robotics may be to “deskill” labor, requiring less ability on the part of humans as

they are incorporated into a mechanized

environment.

Some labor experts and others have also

expressed concern that automation provides

increased opportunities for employer surveillance of employees. Some unions also fear

that automation could be used by employers

to “downgrade” jobs that require working

with automated systems, or that robots

might be targeted to 

first.

Education and Training

A number of education and training issues

are raised by robotics. Some of them will be

addressed in the current OTA assessment of

the impact of information technology on education, in the context of vocational education

and industrial training.

According to the workshop participants,

there is a shortage of trained technical experts in the field of robotics. If there is to be

any significant expansion in the pace of

automation including robotics, many more

computer scientists, engineers, software programers, and technicians will be needed in

the next decade.

A shortage already exists in many fields of

engineering and science. It seems to be particularly critical in areas of computer software design and programing, according to

findings of the recently released National Information System study by OTA (9). Hence,

the issue is not peculiarly unique to robotics

technology, at least in the case of very

highly skilled jobs.

At the same time,

replace unionized jobs

the use of robots has

already created some new technical jobs. A

few programs have been started at the community college level to train workers in robot

installation, programing, and maintenance.

Some participants and observers suggested that there was a need for a more technologically literate work force, one that has a

basic understanding of technology and

mathematics. In their view, improved technological literacy would provide the following benefits:

1.

2.

To the extent that workers would be expected to instruct, oversee the operation

of, or repair robot units, they would

need some basic understanding of computers and systems, both mechanical

and electrical.

A technologically literate work force

would be less likely to resist the introduction of robots and other automation

technology.
Ch. III—Soclai Issues ● 1 7

3. A knowledgeable, technologically

skilled worker would be easier to retrain

for some other job, somewhere else in

the plant.

One observer at the workshop suggested

that the reason the Japanese work force

seemed to welcome robots in their plants was

the high level of technological literacy reported for the average Japanese employee.

This characteristic, accordingly, would give

the employer greater latitude in finding

another and possibly even more skilled job

for a displaced worker.

If the introduction of robotics into a plant

is not to result in unemployment, a program

of retraining displaced workers to take on

new jobs may be necessary. Retraining may

also be required for those workers who remain, for their existing jobs will change in

form and function even if their job title remains the same.

International Impacts

Concern about economic competition in

this technology from Europe and Japan was

repeated often. Panelists pointed to large investments abroad both for research and development and for encouraging the use of

robots. This potential competition exists on

two levels: 1) developing and selling robotics

technology, itself, and 2) using robots to produce goods more competitively (for example

automobiles).

Some experts felt that the directions of

robotics-related research were significantly

different between the United States and

other nations, notably Japan. U.S. researchers emphasize software and highly flexible

systems while many foreign laboratories are

concentrating on hardware. No one maintained that the foreign state of the art in

robotics was superior to that in the United

States. “Technological leads” are hard, in

general, to either prove or disprove.

There was a general feeling that the utilization of robots was further advanced in

several nations (possibly including the Soviet Union) compared to the United States.

Some analysis of the Japanese and Soviet

picture is presented in the background paper

by Aron (app. B, item 1).

The issue of international competition creates conflicts in import/export policy. Controls might be placed on exports of industrial

robots either for national security reasons or

to limit foreign access to domestic high technology that increases the competitiveness of

U.S. firms. However, such controls also deny

U.S. robot manufacturers access to foreign

markets. Even if the total international

market in robots, per se, were to remain

relatively small, robot technology would be a

vital component in the much larger international market for sales of complete automated factories.

Some issues of export controls are examined in the context of East/West trade in a

recent OTA study (10).

Other Applications

Some panelists and other consultants ex- or even impossible for a human to enter or

pressed concern that an examination of the survive, there may be future uses of robots

impacts of robotics not be restricted only to that represent new opportunities.

applications to traditional industrial automation. Because of their ability to work in For example, several defense applications

environments that are hazardous, difficult, were mentioned. While there is work on
18 . Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

direct military applications of robots, much

of the interest on the part of the defense

community in robotics is focused on manufacturing. Improved productivity in the

manufacture of weapons and associated military hardware could offer significant savings

to the defense budget. Flexible, automated

factories, even those not normally involved

in military production, could be more easily

and quickly mobilized in times of national

crisis.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is exploring the expanded use

of robots for such tasks as planetary exploration, repairing satellites in space, and aiding

mining expeditions. Some researchers are interested in the use of robots for ocean exploration and seabed mining.

These examples suggest that, depending

on the capabilities of robots in the next

decade, there may be important applications

that are not now imagined. The nature of

these new capabilities, and hence of the applications, will depend in part on Federal

policies in such broad areas as R&D, technical education, and reindustrialization.
References
References

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Business Week, “Robots Join the Labor 6

Force, ” June 9, 1979.

Bylinski, Gene, “Those Smart Young Robots 7

m the Assembly Line, Fortune, Dec. 17,

1979, pp. 90-96.

Shaiben, Harley, “Microprocessors and La- 8.

bor: Whose Bargaining Chips, ” Technology

Review, January 1981.

Chamot, D., and Baggett, J. M. (eds.), SiZicon

Satellites, and Robots: The Impacts of Tech- 9.

nological Change on the Workplace, AF’LCIO, Washington, D. C., September 1979.

Robot Institute of America, “Preliminary 10.

Summary of Worldwise Survey, ” Dearborn,

Weintraub, Pamela, “Raising the Robot’s

I.Qw ” Discover, June 1981, pp. 77-80.

Rader, Louis T., “Automation Over the

Years, ” Vital Speeches of the Da>’, Jan. 1,

1981, pp. 166-171.

Norman, Colin, Microelectronics at Work:

Productivity and Jobs in the World Economy,

World Watch Paper 39, Worldwatch Institute, October 1980.

Office of Technology Assessment, U.S. Congress, Computerized National Information

System, October 1981.

Office of Technology Assessment, U.S. Congress, Technology and East/West Trade, NoMich., March 1980. vember 1979.

21
Appendixes
Appendix A

Workshop Issues List of

Social Impacts

Employment (Plus and Minus)

Displacement

Patterns

Demographics

Skills/Occupational Categories

Regional Impact

User Industries

Quality of Work Life

Education and Training

Adequacy of Institutional Structure/Curricula

Population Segments

General Population

Executives

Workers

Engineers

Economic

Economic Incentives

Capital Availability and Utilization

Antitrust

International Competitiveness

Import

Export

Technology Transfer

Quality of Life

Income Production and Distribution

Product Quality

Research and Development

Time Base

Continuity

Critical Mass

Process Over Product

People

Robotics Technology

General Standards

Rate of Diffusion

Military Preparedness

25
Appendix B

Commissioned Background Papers

The following papers were prepared as background for the workshop and are included for

the purpose of documenting the project. Their content and conclusions are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of OTA:

1. Paul Aron Report No. 25.

2. Industrial Robots and Productivity Improvement by James S. Albus.

3. Robotics, Programmable Automation and Improving Competitiveness by Bela Gold.

4. Robotics and Its Relationship to the Automated Factory by Eli S. Lustgarten.

26
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers ● 27

Daiwa Securities America Inc.

One Liberty Plaza, New York, New York 10006 (212) 732-6600

July 28, 1981

Paul Aron Report (#25) :

ROBOTS REVISITED :

ONE YEAR LATER

Introduction: Statistics and Definitions

Just about one year ago I issued the Paul Aron Report #22 “Robotics

in Japan” which aroused considerable interest as the first serious and

comprehensive study by an American analyst. In a note to that

Report, I wrote: “Of course, one could continue to search for additional

data which would probably improve the presentation. In view of the extensive American discussion of productivity and the spate of articles on

robots, excellent though insufficiently attentive to Japan experience,

timeliness demanded the publication of what we know now. Thus, as with

all learning, the report must be considered tentative and preliminary not exhaustive”. This note could well be descriptive of this current report. This

report is an update but to facilitate reading. I have included the relevant

material from the previous report. (Report # 22 is still available on request) .

In reexamining the conclusions of my earlier effort, viewed at the

time by some as overly optimistic, I find that the report, w hile basically

correct, understated the tempo of ‘growth. The Japanese industrial robot

industry is growing at a faster pace than anyone had previously estimated.

The original forecast by the Japan Industrial Robot Industry Association

(JIRA) for 1979 shipments was Y 36 billion (about $180 million); actual

shipments amounted to Y 42.4 billion, exceeding the original estimate by

17. 8%. JIRA had initially estimated shipments for 1980 at Y 43 billion; later

it revised the forecast upwards by 39. 5% to Y 65 billion. In actuality, shipments were Y 78.4 billion (about $ 392 million) fully 82.3% above the original

estimate. JIRA is now estimating shipments for 1981 in excess of = 100

billion (about $ 500 million) and for 1985 approximately Y 500 billion (about

$2.5 billion). For 1990 the current “unofficial” estimate is = 1 trillion

(about $5 billion). These estimates should be compared with the initial JIRA estimate in early 1980 of = 195 billion for 1985 which many critics argued could

not be achieved until 1990. Even JIRA has difficulty keeping up with the

forecasts as late in 1980 it was estimating shipments of Y 240- 300 billion

for 1985 and Y= 450- 600 billion for 1990.
28 ● Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

Daiwa Securities America Inc. Page -2-

TABLE I

Industrial Robot Production Value

Year Y Billion $ Million

1968

1969

1970

1971

1972

1973

1974

1975

1976

1977

1978

.4

1.5

4.9

4.3

6.1

9.3

11.4

11.1

14.1

21.6

24.7

1979 42.4

1980 78.4 392

1981E 100. o+ 500

1985E 500.0 2,500

1990E 1,000.0 5,000

**Exchange Rate: Y 200 = $ 1.00

(For convenience only, I have used a single exchange rate of

Y 200 = $ 1.00 throughout the report for the past, present and

future. )

It may be argued that Japanese data on robots is confusing to

Americans because of a difference in definitions. The Electric Machinery

Law of 1971 in Japan defined an industrial robot as an all purpose machine,

equipped with a memory device, and a terminal device (for holding things)

and capable of rotation and of replacing human labor by automatic performance

of movements. JIRA classifies industrial robots by the method of input

information and teaching as follows:

1) manual manipulator--a manipulator that is worked by an operator.

2) fixed sequence robot-- a manipulator which repetitively performs
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers ● 29

Daiwa Securities America Inc. Page -3-

successive steps of a given operation according to a predetermined

sequence, condition, and position, and whose set information cannot be

easily changed.

3) variable sequence robot-- a manipulator which repetitively

performs successive steps of a given operation according to a predetermined

sequence, condition, and position, and whose set information can be easily

changed.

4) playback robot-- a manipulator which can produce, from memory,

operations originally executed under human control. A human operator

initially operates the robot in order to input instructions. All the information relevant to the operations (sequence, conditions, and positions ) is

put in memory. When needed, this information is recalled (or played back,

hence, its name) and the operations are repetitively executed automatically

from memory.

5) NC (numerical control) robot-- a manipulator that can perform a

given task according to the sequence, conditions and position, as commanded

via numerical data. The software used for these robots include punched

tapes, cards, and digital switches. This robot has the same control mode

as an N. C. machine.

6) intelligent robot-- this robot with sensory perception (visual

and /or tactile) can detect changes by itself in the work environment or

work condition and, by its own decision-making faculty, proceed with

its operation accordingly.

I have used

(1) “Robots

(2) “Robots

three different robot definitions:

by Japanese Definition ’’--all 6 classes

by U.S. Definition ’’--classes 3,4, 5,6

(3) “Sophisticated Robots ’’--classes 4,5,6

The American Robot Industry Association (RIA) defines a robot as “a

manipulator designed to move material, parts, tools, or specialized devices,

through variable programmed motions for the performance of a variety of

tasks. “ Thus, the U.S. definition of robots eliminates the manual manipulators and fixed sequence machines.

The following is a breakdown by the nature of input information and

teaching (in yen value) .
30 ● Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

Daiwa Securities America Inc. Page -4-

1)

2)

3)

4)

5)

6)

7)

TABLE 2

Share in Total Shipment

By Nature of Teaching and Input Information

Manual Manipulator

Fixed Sequence Robot

Variable Sequence

Playback Robot

NC Robot

Intelligent Robot

Attachments

Robot

10.5 10.2

0.2

0.1 1.7

14.7 7.2

100.0 100.0

1976

11. 4%

47.6

8.9

12.7

0.4

6.2

12.8

100.0

1977 1978

8.7% 5.6%

39.0 37,1

10.9 14.6

18.0 17.4

0.4 0.5

10.3 12.2

12.7 12.6

100.0 100.0

1979

5. o%

47.0

18.0

17.0

4.0

9.0

100.0

The sophisticated robots clearly represents an increasing share of

p reduction --37. 5% by the first half of 1980 compared to only 10.8% in 1974.

Data is available for the number of units per type produced in 1979

and the number of robots installed and working at the end of 1979.

TABLE 3

Shipments of Industrial Robots - 1979

Type Units

Manual Manipulator 1,051

Fixed Sequence Robot 10,721

Variable Sequence Robot 1,224

Playback Robot 662

NC Robot 89

Intelligent Robot 788

Value =Y Million)

2,100

19,990

7,700

7,200

1,700

3,800

First

Half F . Y.

1980

7. 8%

35.8

13.3

25.0

2.6

9.9

5.6

100.0

14,535 units 42,400
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers . 31

Daiwa Securities America Inc. Page -5-

TABLE 4

Industrial Robots - Installed and Operating

12/31/79

Manual Manipulator 7,290

Fixed & Variable Sequence Robot 45,760

Playback & NC Robot 2, 410

Intelligent Robot 788

56, 800 units

As JIRA previously had not differentiated fixed and variable sequence

robots, the number of operating variable sequence robots installed in

1979 must be estimated. I prefer the more conservative estimate of 4300

rather than the higher IO, 250.

Final data is not yet available for 1980 but, based on the latest

preliminary data shipments and installed working robots at the end of

1980 can be estimated as follows:

TABLE 5

Industrial Robots - Installed and Operating (Estimated)

12/31 /80

Units

1) Manual Manipulator 8,790

2) Fixed Sequence Robot 56,460

3) Variable Sequence Robot 6, 100

4&5) Playback & NC Robot 3,460

6) Intelligent Robot 1,690

Total 76,500
32 ● Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

Daiwa Securities America Inc.

TABLE 6

Shipments of Industrial Robots Estimated

1)

2)

3)

4)

5)

6)

Using the

following chart

1980

Units

Manual Manipulator

Fixed Sequence Robot

Variable Sequence Robot

Playback Robot

NC Robot

Intelligent

Total

more restrictive U.S.

compares the relative

definition

positions.

Industrial Robots

1980

Page -6-

1,500

15,000

1,800

900

150

’350

19,700

TABLE 6A

Us. - Japan Comparison

of industrial robots, the

Production in Units 1980

Japan

3,2000

U s.

1, 269

Production in Value ($ Mil.) 1980 180 100

Installed Operating Units 12/31 /80 11,250 4,370

The most optimistic estimates for U.S. production in 1980 is 1,500

and for U. S. installed robots 5, 000 but even if this estimate were correct

the U.S. position is hardly altered.
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers ● 33

Daiwa Securities America Inc. Page -7-

In 1980 the United States probably placed third in the unit production of industrial robots--the Soviet Union produced an estimated

2,000- 3,000 industrial robots. Soviet production, however, tends to

concentrate on the less sophisticated robots. Somehow, Americans seem

to have taken comfort with an estimate published in Time in December 1980,

of 25 robots in the Soviet Union (at the very moment that the Soviet

Union was producing about 70 different robot models) . Incidentally, Soviet

robotics began even later than Japan --in 1971-72 the first three Soviet

robots were produced. The United States produced its first robot in

1961--a Unimate based on a patent originally issued in 1954. It was only

in 1967 that Tokyo Machinery Trading Co. started to import and sell a

Versatran robot, then produced by AMF, Inc. In November, 1968, 

Heavy Industries concluded a technology license agreement with Unimation and

in 1969 began to produce robots in Japan. Thus, the U.S. enjoyed at

least an eight year lead over Japan and a ten year lead over the Soviet

Union.

What does the future hold?--My estimates or better “guesstimates”

for Japan is necessarily very tentative.

TABLE 7

Japanese Industrial Robot Demand Forecast--Paul Aron

In Units

1980 (E) 1985 (E) 1990 (E)

Manual Manipulator

Fixed Sequence

Variable Sequence

Playback

NC Robot

Intelligent

1,500 6,000 12,000

15,000 30,000 45,000

1,800 14,000 18,650

900 6,500 13,000

150 1,400 2,800

350 10,000 23,000

Total 19,700 67,900 114,450
34 ● Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

Daiwa Securities America Inc. Page -8-

TABLE 8 (Japanese Industrial Robot Demand Forecast--Paul Aron[cont.])

In Value - Billion Y

Manual Manipulator

Fixed Sequence

Variable Sequence

Playback

NC Robot

Intelligent

Auxiliary Equipment

Export

Total

1980(E)

(Y) (%)

3.0 3.8

38.4 49.0

12.0 15.3

12.1 15.4

3.7 4.7

4.9 6.3

3.0 3.8

1.2 1.5

78.4 100%

1985(E)

(Y) (%)

10 2

60 12

75 15

70 14

15 3

120 24

70 14

80 16

500 100%

1990 (E)

(Y) (%)

20 2

90 9

100 10

140 14

30 3

280 28

140 14

200 20

1,000 100%

Using the more restrictive American definition of robots, Japanese

industrial robot production is estimated to achieve a unit output of 31,900

with a value of $ 2.15 billion in 1985 and 57, 450 units and $ 4.45 billion

in 1990. If this were to occur, Japanese output in 1985 would be four times

greater in units and value than the most optimistic forecast for the U.S.

Why have industrial robots enjoyed such success in Japan and why

do the Japanese place such high confidence in their future?

LABOR :

Japan’s success in robot production and installation can be traced, in

large measure, to its labor practices. The Japanese employees in major

corporations are guaranteed lifetime employment (until the age of 55-60) .

In addition, all employees receive two bonuses, each ranging from 2-5

months pay, in June and December, which, while negotiated between the

union and management, are ultimately based upon the company profitability.

The Japanese union is not based on crafts, skills or occupations: the union

is on a company wide basis and covers all member of the bargaining unit.

Employees identify with the company, not with a skill and they are often

shifted from one job to another within the company. The worker, not

fearing loss of employment, does not oppose automation; in addition, as

automated production generally enhances quality and profit and consequently the bonus, the Japanese employees welcome the robots. In Japan

the company assumes the responsibility for retraining the employees who

have been displaced by the robots. The large companies, at least in the

last 20-25 years have assumed the responsibility of training and retraining

their employees; lifetime employment deprives most companies of the
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers ● 35

Daiwa Securities America Inc. Page -9-

opportunity to recruit skilled workers from other companies and therefore,

necessitates training. Not fearing the loss of trained workers, companies

are encouraged to devote considerable effort to training programs. Finally,

as robots are used in dangerous, unhealthy and repetitive jobs, the

employees consider production by robots as a means of relieving monotonous

and environmentally harmful tasks in manufacturing. Employees, displaced by robots, have moved to jobs, more challenging intellectually and

less demanding physically.

The practice of QC circles has played an important role in developing

employee participation in problem-solving. They are voluntary teams of

8-10 employees who began in the mid-sixties to study quality problems

and to suggest improvements. These teams expanded their range of

activity from quality to many other areas including productivity, especially

during the seventies. Studies indicate that both the unions and particularly the QC circles have often been involved in introducing robots into

plants. It should be no surprise that those companies which have the most

active QC circles are also the leaders in robotization. Of course, the

relatively high tempo of real economic growth in Japan, with its consequent demand for increased labor, has more than compensated for the

losses of jobs resulting from increasing productivity, automation, and

robot introduction. Some Japanese economists, however, are already

warning that the saturation by industrial robots might create an unemploy–

ment problem in the 1990’s.

The Japanese seem to believe that they displaced the U.S. as the

“Number One” in robot production largely because of the labor problem.

In America and Western Europe, the introduction of robots is frequently

debated and the crucial point in such debates is the unemployment problem. This is rarely discussed in Japan and instead the positive effects

of robots are discussed: improvement of quality and productivity and

greater safety for the employees. Stress is placed on the new opportunities

for greater and higher level employment, as robot operators, robot

maintenance workers, and “software engineers”, and for opportunities in

new industries such as ocean resource gathering made possible by robots.

Unlike Japan, few U.S. companies have assumed the responsibility for

retraining workers that could be displaced by robots. Furthermore, the

American worker does not directly benefit from the increased savings and

profit created by robotics. It is interesting that the TV program on

productivity (“If Japan can do it, etc. ” ) omitted any discussion of the bonus

in Japan.

COSTS OF LABOR AND ROBOTS

The advantages of industrial robots can be better understood in the

context of the relationship of labor costs and robot costs. The accomplishments of the robot introduction in Japan from 1968 to 1973 were not
36 . Exploratory workshop on (the Social Impacts of Robot/es

Daiwa Securities America Inc. Page -10-

promising because of the wide divergence of labor and robot costs. Before

the 1973 “Oil Shock”, Japanese labor costs were still relatively inexpensive

while industrial robots were still high-priced because of the low level of

electronic development. During the decade of the seventies labor costs

rose sharply in Japan. The manufacturing cost of industrial robots of

all types at first declined from 1970-1975. After 1975, the price of the

simpler and less electronic “robots” rose, but the “semiconductor revolution”

in Japan continued to reduce the cost of the more sophisticated robots.

The following table based on a JIRA survey is revealing.

TABLE 9

Ratio of Robot Costs to Labor Costs

(Unit - Y 1000)

Total 1970 1975 1978

A. Labor Cost Per Man 990 2,300 3,000

B. Average Price -- Robot

(Japanese definition)

4,600 48100 58000

c. cost -- Playback Robot 12,000 11,000 11,000

Ratio B/A 4.6 1.8 1.7

Ratio C/A 12.1 4.8 3.7

The decline of robot costs relative to labor costs is especially sharp in

the field of sophisticated robots. Superficially, a playback robot can be

amortized within four years on a single shift and within two years on a

double shift. The actual expenses of robot installation and maintenance

resulted in a slower rate of amortization. In the future, labor costs are

expected to increase 6 - 7% annually while robot costs, thanks to declining

microprocessor prices, should remain level or decline.

In a questionnaire distributed by JIRA on the motives for installing

industrial robots in the future, the responses in order of importance were

as follows: (1) economic advantage, (2) increased worker safety,

(3) universalization of production systems, (4) stable product quality, and

(5) labor shortage.

Hence, the economic advantage of the industrial robot over human

labor which seems certain to grow in the future is considered the most

important factor in the increased application of industrial robots.
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers ● 37

Daiwa Securities America Inc.

MANAGEMENT

Page -11-

Japanese management on all levels has been more responsive to the

introduction of robots than their American counterparts. Life-time

employment has created greater security and a more long-range attitude

among Japanese managers. The absence of stock options reinforces this

attitude. Japanese managers are able to tolerate the high initial costs of

incorporating robots into p reduction and are willing to accept a much longer

payoff than their American counterparts. In the first year of robot introduction, costs can be very high-- not only increases in depreciation,

interest costs, and miscellaneous costs related to the robot (changes in the

plant and its equipment to accommodate the robots) , but also interference

and slowdowns in production while the robot is being fully integrated into

p reduction. In one case study in Japan, for example, the company had

anticipated that robots would increase production, and thus would permit

write-off of all costs within the first year. Instead, production declined

and total costs grew by 30%. Similar experiences have caused many

American managers to abandon their robot program. But the Japanese

persisted and at the end of the second year total costs were 25% less than

if the product had continued to be produced manually.

Japanese managers are generalists, often shifted from one area to

another that bears little relationship to their previous experience. On the

other hand, American managers tend to be specialists and stay within one

area of work during their entire career. This, at times, creates opposition,

if not hostility, to a novelty such as a robot that might undermine their

position. American reports are replete with tales of opposition to robots

by middle and lower managers and conflicts between manufacturing engineers

seeking to introduce new technology and production departments seeking to

maximize current production and intolerant of any interference in output.

Even the front line of management-the foreman-often see the robot as a

threat to their status especially when the robot requires “care and feeding”

by an inexperienced youth with a training in electronics who substitutes

knowledge for strength.

In an atmosphere of relatively high interest rates the financial side of

U.S. management constantly seeks shorter and shorter payouts and

American roboticists often see these “bean counters” as their enemy. The

non-adversary relationship and the long-term outlook which pervades the

Japanese company has successfully coped with the issues of robot introduction.

American and European companies were also, to some extent, sidetracked in robotics as they had been in the production of numerical

control machinery. The Americans developed very expensive and very

complicated NC machines so that when the computer broke down, the entire
38 . Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

Daiwa Securities America Inc. Page -12-

maachine, virtually a machine shop in itself, halted. The Japanese developed

smaller, simpler, less expensive machines that catered to small-scale production and could produce in small batches. In robotics the European and

American producers often concentrated on the most expensive robots and

permitted the Japanese to develop robotics gradually from the unsophisticated manual manipulators to more complex systems that incorporate

“intelligence”.

INDUSTRY STRUCTURE FOR INDUSTRIAL ROBOTS

At present about 130-140 firms in Japan are manufacturing robots of

whom 37 are members of the JIRA. Most large manufacturers, actual or

potential, are JIRA members but some important exceptions should be

noted--Matsushita Electric Industries, Osaka Transformer Corporation,

Seiko, and the pen manufacturers.

The existing robot makers are widely distributed over the whole

range of business scales. In size of capitalization, robot makers are

broadly distributed from small firms to giant corporations. In examining

the table below, the 55 small companies with less than Y 100 million

capitalization (equal to about $ 500, 000) represents 41. 4% of the enterprises;

the medium firms with (Y 100- 300 million) represent 23. 3%, while the firms

with over Y 3 billion capitalization (equal to about $ 15,000, 000) represent

35. 3% of the corporations. The same trend is evident when we examine

the robot makers by number of employees. The small firms with less than

500 employees represent 46. 6% of the total, the medium firms with 500 to

5000, 30. 1%, and the giant firms with over 5000 employees, 23. 3%. This

data, based on a JIRA survey in 1979, of 133 robot makers, is shown below:

TABLE 10

Industrial Robot Maker Distribution

By Size of Capital

Less than Y 10 million 19 companies

Y 10 million - Y 100 million 36 companies

Y 100 million - Y 1 billion 23 companies

Y 1 billion - Y 3 billion 8 companies

More than Y 3 billion 47 companies

Total 133 companies

14.3 %

27.1 %

17.3 %

6.0 %

35.3 %

100.0 %
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers . 39

Daiwa Securities America Inc.

TABLE 11

Industrial Robot Maker Distribution

By Number of Employees

Page -13-

Less than 50 33 companies 24.8 %

50 - 500 29 companies 21.8 %

500 - 1000 15 companies 11.3 %

1000- 5000 25 companies 18.8 %

More than 5000 31 companies 23.3 %

Total 133 companies 100.0 %

The wide distribution of industrial robot makers is the result of

several factors. The giant electrical equipment and heavy machinery

makers were attracted by the high growth potential of industrial robots

and entered the field to diversify their business. Many have been motivated

originally by the need for robots within their own business to increase

productivity and safety, overcome shortage of some skilled workers, and to

enhance their ability to undertake small and medium batch multi-product

manufacturing. This applies to the large electrical manufacturers such as

Hitachi, Matsushita, Toshiba, Mitsubishi Electric and Fuji Electric. It

also applies to the heavy equipment manufacturers such as Kawasaki Heavy

Industries, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Tokico, Shinmeiwa, and

Ishikawajima-Harima. Some of the steel makers such as Kobe Steel and

Daido, in diversifying their operations into heavy machinery, also were

attracted to robots.

Since robot application often must be custom-made for each and every

user according to his specific production process, the robot maker, even

if small, can specialize in a specific area of application and successfully

compete with the big corporations. Some of these smaller companies undertook to produce robots in order to enhance their major products such as

Aida in the hydraulic press manufacturing. The production of robots often

enabled the manufacturer to offer a total system rather than an individual

piece of equipment. This phenomenon is seen mainly among the machine

makers such as Fujitsu Fanuc, Toshiba Seiki, Nachi-Fujikoshi and Komatsu.

Other small enterprises began to manufacture robots for their own use and

then ultimately marketed them. This applies to firms such as Seiko and

Sailor Pen. Many firms branched into robots from manufacturing materials

handling equipment and conveyors. This included firms such as

Tsubakimoto and Motoda.
40 . Exploratory workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

Daiwa Securities America Inc. Page -14-

The Japanese are currently debating the future of this structure of

robot makers. Some expect no radical change in the industry structure

within the foreseeable future. They believe that the small to medium

enterprises will continue to carve out markets for themselves in the many

specialized areas. Others visualizing the increasing role of minicomputers and intelligent robots expect that the large electric manufacturing

companies because of their superiority in IC and LSI technology, will

dominate the robot industry. At present, each individual robot maker

has its own area of special expertise such as Yaskawa in arc welding,

Kobe Steel in large paint sprayers, Aida in press application, Fujitsu

Fanuc in machine tool processing. However, all makers are using the

technology developed in their specialty area for applications of other areas ●

Kawasaki is the most active in this approach with its Unimates entering

almost all areas of application. But many other manufacturers are aspiring

to be “universal robot makers”. The emergence of an electronicallyoriented universal robot maker depends on the rate of development of

intelligent assembly robots.

Unlike the United States, where two robot makers hold over one half

of the market share, the Japanese market is widely dispersed and changing

each year. In the U.S. , despite the many new companies entering the

field, companies actually manufacturing robots probably number less than

20 compared to about 140 in Japan. Kawasaki Heavy Industries has only

3-4% of unit volume of all Japanese robots (by Japanese definition) . By

the more strict U.S. robot definition, Kawasaki produced 450 of the 3300

robots made in Japan in 1980 for a market share of 18% in units. Because

of its relatively higher price, the market share of Kawasaki in value is

probably somewhat higher. In many respects the production of robots

in Japan resemble the fierce competition that grew up among manufacturers

of television sets, digital watches, desk and hand calculators and videotape recorders. After a period of intense competition among many firms,

production ultimately was concentrated in a few large firms. It should

be noted that this period of competition also resulted in Japanese domination in the world market for these products. As the spokesman for the

Lonq Term Credit Bank of Japan confidently puts it: “It is only a matter

of time before the industrial robot becomes one more piece of merchandise

which symbolizes Japan”.

This industrial structure has given the Japanese several advantages.

The American robot manufacturers must sell their robots to users; few can

test their equipment in actual production conditions at their own plants.

With the entry of IBM, Texas Instruments, and Westinghouse into the

robot market, this should be altered. But in Japan all through the decade

of the seventies the major manufacturers now emerging-Hitachi. Matsushita,

Toshiba-had been using robots within these companies. Furthermore,

many other companies entered the robot field because they had developed
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers ● 41

Daiwa Securities America Inc. Page -15-

robots initially for their own needs-Sailor Pen, Pentel, Pilot in the pen

and pencil industry, Okamura in the furniture industry,Tokico in the

compressor industry. Many companies developed robots to sell their

own products -Aida, Japan leading press manufacturer , developed a

series of loading and unloading robots for its presses. Fujitsu Fanuc

developed a series of robots to service their N. C. machines. In turn,

Fanuc’s competitors developed robots to stay in competition with Fanuc

while Fanuc in turn developed an assembly robot to help reduce the costs

of producing its robots. In some cases companies developed robots for

affiliates. That Mitsubishi Electric should develop a “Window Cleaning

Robot” , a fixed sequence machine for high buildings, can be better

understood when we know that its sister, Mitsubishi Estate, owns many

of the tall buildings in Tokyo’s Wall Street. This automatic cleaning

operation, reduced maintenance cost, eliminated dangerous work, provided better cleaning, and protected “privacy in offices, hotels, and

other places”. Tovoda Machine Works provided welding and handling robots

for Toyota. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries provided robots originally just

for Mitsubishi Motors, its automobile making subsidiary.

Because the robots were used within their own factories, the robot

makers in Japan offered for sale not just robots but total systems which

already had been tested for several years in their own factories. This

compelled companies that had originally just produced robots to begin

to develop total systems. One example of this is a completely unmanned

computer-run dry noodle factory-which includes an automatic warehouse,

battery-operated cars, loading and unloading robots, automatic manufacturing and inspection, and packing.

GOVERNMENT POLICY

It is quite evident that MITI has been interested in robots since the

beginning of the seventies. It would seem unlikely that JIRA would have

been formed without some government encouragement. However, it was

not until 1978 that the industrial robot was officially designated as an

“experimental research promotion product” and as a “rationalization promotion product” with promulgation of the special Machine Information

Industry Promotion Extraordinary Measures Act. While the Electric

Machinery Law in 1971 had defined an industrial robot, industrial robot

terminology was first standardized in 1979 under the Japanese Industrial

Standards.

Following the typical policy of cooperative rather than adversary

relations with business, the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MITI) ,

having identified robot production as a major strategic industry for

Japan’s future, undertook several measures to popularize their utilization.

90-240 0 - 82 - 4
42 . Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

Daiwa Securities America Inc. Page -16-

(1) With MITI encouragement, if not direction, a robot leasing

company, Japan Robot Lease, (JAROL) , was founded in April, 1980

with the initial paid-in capital of Y 100 million. This company is jointly

owned--70% by 24 JIRAmembers and 30% by ten non-life insurance companies. The aim of JAROL is to support robot installation by small and

medium-scale manufacturers and increase their productivity. As 60% of

operating funds are financed by low cost loans from the government’s

Japan Development Bank, and the rest from the Long-Term Credit Bank,

Industrial Bank of Japan and the city banks, JAROL is in a position to

lease industrial robots under conditions more advantageous than the

ordinary leasing companies. For its first year of operation (fiscal year

1980) , JAROL planned Y 700 million robot leases; actually its leasing

contracts numbering 52 amounted to Y 1, 150 million (about $ 571/2 million) .

The average term of the lease was 6.5 years and provided a full payout.

In April, 1981 JAROL offered a more flexible 2- 3 year rental agreement

(not a full payout) and after the expiration of the agreement planned to

rent the robot to the same or a different user. At the same time JAROL

began discussions with MITI to enter overseas leasing of robots. This

resulted from a request of an Australian firm to lease Japanese-made

robots. Some question arose as to the propriety of using government

loans for overseas leasing but JAROL suggested loans from the Japan

Export and Import Bank. Positive action on this matter will greatly

strengthen Japan’s competitiveness in overseas industrial robot markets.

(2) MITI has arranged for direct government low-interest loans

to small and medium-scale manufacturers to encourage robot installation

for automating processes dangerous to human labor and for increasing

productivity. The government budgeted for fiscal year 1980 Y 5.8 billion

for these loans which are extended through the Small Business Finance

Corporation, a government finance agency.

(3) MITI has permitted the manufacturer who installs a robot to

depreciate 12. 5% of its initial purchase price in the first year in addition

to taking ordinary depreciation. This extra depreciation is a common

practice in Japan when MITIseeks to promote a particular industry or

product. Extra depreciation has been as high as 50%. Generally it can

be taken over a three year period and is usually repaid in five annual

installments beginning in the sixth year. B y installing an industrial

robot, a firm can depreciate 52. 5% in the first year, 12. 5% plus 40% ( 5

year depreciation double declining) .

(4) MITI created an atmosphere favorable to the introduction of the

industrial robot, but it had depended largely on the private companies to

determine the direction and scale of production and to undertake R & D.

However, MITI has now just announced plans for a huge R & D program

to be discussed in the following section.
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers ● 43

Daiwa Securities America Inc. Page -17-

ORGANIZATION OF ROBOTIC RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

Research on robotics in Japan is conducted by three major types of

institutions --colleges and universities, national and public research

institutes, and research laboratories of private firms. The number of

robot research laboratories in universities and public research institutions

grew from 43 in 1974 to 85 in 1980. In fiscal 1979, the universities spent

100 million yen (or about $.5 million) on robot research and the public

research institutes about 220 million yen (about $ 1 million) . This total

of about $ 14 million is hardly a very large amount. But this statistic

omits “personnel expenditures” and is therefore a substantial understatement. Some 270 researchers at colleges and universities and 80

researchers at institutes worked on robots in 1979. Public research has

concentrated on theoretical problems, many of which have direct and

immediate application such as-- speed control (acceleration of robot when

its grip per holds nothing) , improved positioning accuracy, simplification

and modularization of robots, sensory perception, pattern recognition

ability.

The expenditure of private enterprises on robots has not been

made public but up to now has been the overwhelming source of robotic

R & D. Of the 107 robot manufacturers surveyed by JIRA in 1979,

twenty had a specialized robot research division in their in-house research

laboratories, while another fifty-two without a special robot research

division had one or more researchers specializing in robot research.

The private research laboratories have concentrated on R & D most

closely linked to application–-increased speed, miniaturization, computer

control, weight reduction and modularization (development of interchangeable robots) .

A major change has just occurred--MITI announced a seven year

Y 30 billion national robot research program to begin April 1, 1982. MITI

will create a new R & D group to carry out the program whose purpose is

to make robots suitable for a wider application and to develop Japanese

robot technology instead of relying on imported American and West

European know-how. Stress is to be placed on intelligent robots especially

for assembly work, and on robots for nuclear, space, oceanic, and earthmoving industries. The development of sensory perception, language

systems, and motional capacity are to receive top priority. This program

is called a nationally important major technology development scheme.

SOCIO-ECONOMIC IMPACT OF INDUSTRIAL ROBOTS

This section expresses the Japanese views on this topic and is greatly

indebted to Mr. Yonemoto of JIRA, Japan’s most prominent authority on this

subject. Industrial robots have three major characteristics which, in large

measure, determine their socio-economic impact.
44 ● Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

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1) Industrial robots ,unlike special purpose automated machines,

are programmable, and, as a consequence, are both flexible and versatile.

A robot’s movements may be altered merely by changing its program.

2) Industrial robots can perform beyond the physical and mechanical

abilities of humans. They do not tire from long and continuous hours of

work in an environment which may be uncomfortable, if not hazardous to

humans. (They require no breaks to overcome fatigue or to meet personal needs) .

3) Industrial robots perform with a high fidelity and accuracy in

compliance with the instructions which they receive from man.

As a result of their versatility, super-human capability, and high

fidelity to programming, industrial robots have changed in many ways

the production scene in which they are employed.

1. Automation of Multi-Product Small Batch and Mixed-Flow Production Line.

The flexibility and versatility of industrial robots makes possible

the automation of multi-product small batch and mixed-flow-line production. The special purpose automated machine is restricted to limited

model mass production. Recently, consumer demand has become increasingly

diversified to the point where according to Japanese estimates, fully 80%

of mechanized industry’s products are manufactured in a moderate-tolow volume of output. Thus, the nature of contemporary consumer

demand and particularly Japan’s desire to accommodate a wide diversity of

export requirements necessitated and encouraged the use of industrial

robots.

2. Ease of Phasing in Product Design Modification and Model Changeover.

A complete changeover or even a modification in a product model

often require changing or at least radically rebuilding a special purpose

automated machine. Where an industrial robot is used instead, a mere

change in program is required. As the product life cycle shortens, the

flexibility and versatility of industrial robots becomes increasingly advantageous .

3. Improved Operating Ratio and Increased Operating Time.

Unlike men, industrial robots can operate on a 24 hour basis and

therefore, the machines, they service can also operate on a 24 hour basis.

Furthermore, industrial robots are capable of performing functions at a

high speed which exceed human limitations.
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers ● 45

Daiwa Securities America Inc.

4. Ability to Withstand Severe Working Conditions.

Page -19-

The industrial robot can work in an environment which is adverse

to humans. Human beings require a host of conditions to make the

working atmosphere both pleasant and safe-ventilation, proper lighting,

air conditioning, or at least temperature control, and a variety of

safety devices and conditions.

5. Ability to Execute Proper and Accurate Motions and the Ability to

Cope Elastically with Changing Production Volume.

The sustained stability of industrial robot operation--their ability

to work continuously and accurately faithful to their man-given instructions--

eliminates slumps and spurts and provides a smoother production flow.

This ability also enables increased production demands to be met effectively.

6. Change in Nature of Production System.

To the Japanese the introduction of industrial robots means a

change in the p reduction system. In the typical traditional mass production line the machine determines the activity of the operators--something pointedly satirized in Chaplin’s famous film, “Modern Times”. The

operator programs the industrial robot and therefore, the human dominates the system. According to the Japanese, the industrial robot

reduced psychological resistance to the conveyor system and thus

permitted its more effective use. They believe that human satisfaction

derived from the human control over the robot and this attitude led to

qualitative improvement in labor.

7. Creation of New Technologies.

The characteristics of the industrial robots-- combined with the change

in the production system to a man-dominated robot-machine system led

to the creation of completely new technologies and to their application

in exploiting oceanic resources and in increasing utilization of nuclear

energy. Robot applications to health, household, and cleaning duties

have also been forecast.

The wide socio-economic Impacts of the application of industrial robots

expected by the Japanese roboticists has begun to be evident.

1. Improvement of Productivity.

The automation of small-batch and multi-product mixed-flow line

production saved man-hours and reduced in-process and accumulated

inventory. The improved operating ratio and increased operating time
46 ● Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

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also reduced man-hours. The relative ease with which an industrial robot

could be fit for a product design changed saved the time usually required

for retooling. The more effective use of the conveyor system made possible

by the industrial robot,also contributed to enhanced productivity.

2. Stability and Improvement in Product Quality.

The super-human capacities of the industrial robots and their

fidelity to human instruction led to a uniformity of products and hence

made possible the stability and improvement of product quality. By

working 24 hours the industrial robot eliminated the incidence of inferior

or defective products which often occur during factory start-up operations.

The quality variations which result from long hours or the differing

abilities of operators were eliminated.

3. Improvement in Production Management.

Production management has improved for several reasons:

a) Reduction of inventory and in-process products as a result of

automation of small-batch and multi-product mixed-flow -line-production.

b) Reduction in set-up time and elimination of retooling the production line.

c) The durability and accuracy of industrial robots facilitated

production planning.

d) Industrial robots reacting more elastically to production volume

change reduced problems of manpower reallocation.

e) Industrial robots have helped to improve the quality of work life

and led to greater employment stability. In addition, they have contributed to overcoming the skilled manpower shortage in such areas as

welding and painting.

4. “Humanization” of Working Life.

a) Industrial robots released humans from hazardous and unhealthy

working conditions preventing accidents and occupational diseases.

b) Industrial robots released humans from monotonous work and

thus reduced psychological stress.

c) The man-robot-machine production system eliminated the

psychological resistance to the conveyor system, and improved labor
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers ● 47

Daiwa Securities America Inc. Page -21-

quality and human satisfactions from the human control of robots. Such

a system corresponded better to a more highly educated and aging

society. In recent years, Japan’s society has witnessed a growing shift

from blue-collar to white-collar occupations and the industrial robot

enables corporations to accommodate to this trend. Human resources

liberated from adverse work environments and from monotonous repetitive manual jobs are rechanneled into more intellectually demanding

robot operations and maintenance positions. For example, manual wire

bonding of IC’s require the fatiguing performance of monotonous,

repetitive tasks under a microscope, and a training period of 4 - 5

months. The industrial robot reduces the training period to 15 minutes

and eliminates the fatiguing manual operation.

Robot utilization makes possible greater employment opportunity

for the infirm, elderly and female work force in industries where heavy

and continuous loading /unloading or carrying a heavy welding gun were

required. The “humanization” or work life contributed to employment

stability, reducing absences from work.

5. Resource Conservation.

Industrial robots contributed to conservation of resources, a high

priority factor especially since the oil crisis of 1973. These savings

were achieved in a variety of ways:

a) The robot saved material-the paint spraying robot, for example,

used 20- 30% less than the manual painters in many operations.

b) The ease of accommodating the robot to product design changes

reduced investment in purchasing and /or rebuilding equipment.

c) The reduced defective ratio saved resources.,

d) The industrial robot, by working in unpleasant environment,

reduced the energy consumption of air conditioning, ventilation, lighting,

etc.

d) By its ability to operate on one, two or three shifts, the industrial

robot resulted in reducing investment.

ROBOT APPLICATION

Robot shipments are also classified by user which shows the automobile as the primary buyer except in 1980, when the electric appliance

industry, which usually occupied second place, took the lead for the first

time.
48 ● Exploratory workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

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TABLE 12

Breakdown of Industrial Robots by User (In Value)

Japanese Definition

1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980P

Auto 35. 5% 19. 9% 30.5% 33. 6% 34. 5% 38. 4% 30. o%

Electric Appliance 9.6 12.8 20.9 23.1 24.6 17.5 36.0

Machinery 4.5 5.6 7.6 8.8 7.0 5.3

Metal Products 5.8 3.8 5.8 3.4 7.1 9.0

Exports 2.9 4.2 2.3 4.5 2.5 1.9

(P - Preliminary announcement of JIRA)

However, the automobile industry still dominated the sphere of sophisticated robots.

TABLE 13

Shipments of Playback Robots by User

(4/1/80 - 10/1/80)

Unit

Automobile 61. 5%

Electric Appliance 10.3

Machinery 3.9

Metal Products 4.4

Exports 5.9

Others 14.0

Value

52. 4%

11.6

8.3

5.7

6.0

16.0

The large percentage of exports of playback robots compared to the less than 2%

export share of total industrial robot production indicates the direction

of Japan’s export policy.

Since the playback robot seems to be concentrated heavily in the

automotive industry, an analysis of the type of work performed by

playback could indicate relative use:
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers ● 4 9

Daiwa Securities America Inc.

TABLE 14

Breakdown of Playback Robot by Work Process

(4/1/80 - 10/1/80)

Page -23-

Unit Value

Arc Welding 18. 8% 26. O%

Spot Welding 57.1 45. 1

Spray Painting 11.3 17.8

Others 12.8 11.1

spot welding represents the major application of the

preliminary report on 1980 calendar year robot

that compared to 1979, arc welding robots increased

It is clear that

playback robots. A

production revealed

2 11% in value and 100% in units, and spot welding robots grew 85% and 100%

respectively. In addition, assembly robots grew 340% and 33% respectively

(certainly from a low base) , and press and conveying robots 60% and 6%

respectively. The large growth in assembly robots was mainly for insertion

of electronic parts into printed circuit boards (an increase of 440% in 1980

compared to 1979) .

SPOT WELDING

The automobile industry has until 1980 been the largest single consumer of robot production, in large measure because of its purchases of

spot welding robots. The majority of Japanese car bodies consist of

300-400 press-formed parts manufactured from sheet steel which are

bonded together by 3,000-4,000 spot welds. In the latter half of the

1960’s special purpose automatic multi-spot welding machines were introduced. However, with the tendency to product diversification and the

shorter life cycle of car models, the return on investment of the multispot welders declined. Large monetary expenditures to modify the multispot welders were necessitated by model change-over or design modification. During the modification, a considerable period of time was lost

and management expenses were consumed for production line reorganization.

Thus, the robots replaced the multi-spot welders because they only

require being taught where to weld in the new model in the event of a

model change-over. Often merely one hour is required for the new

learning process. As production volume is no longer clearly predictable,

it became quite risky to invest in special purpose automatic machines.
50 . Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

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Investment in the more flexible robot seemed preferable. The robot also

eliminates the need of the manual operator to follow the conveyor line

with a heavy welding gun.

The automobile companies then introduced batteries of robot welders.

In some assembly plants, a single operator for robots can handle a work

load once shared by ten workers. To improve productivity by simultaneous

multi-spot welding, efforts have been made to develop multi-arm welding

robots and to apply a number of modular robots to welding. Robot introduction into the spot welding line has made possible the automation of multiproduct mixed-flow-assembly line on which various model flow one after

another.

Nissan has been the largest user of spot welders and by the end of

1980, it had about 300 spot welders. At the same time, Toyota reportedly

had 200 spot welding robots, but it ordered 720 robots from Kawasaki

Heavy Industries --220 by 3/81, 200 by 3/82, and 300 by 3/83. It has been

assumed that most of these would be used for spot welding. Kawasaki

is reportedly delivering about 25 units monthly. Mitsubishi Motors has

been receiving spot welding robots from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

Toyo Kogyo and Honda have introduced welding robots.

Kawasaki H .1. is clearly the leader in production of robot spot welders.

By spring of 1981, it had delivered 1,500 Unimates primarily for s-pot

welding, and its monthly production rate is 60. Mitsubishi H. 1. occupies

second place, having delivered 250 robots by the spring of 1981 and with

monthly production rate is slightly over 10. Toshiba Seiki has begun

production of a modular spot welding high speed robot which can reach

a monthly rate of 35-50. Toyoda Machine Works is also making an inexpensive building block system spot welding playback robot, but they will

a

not be offered for public sale until the fall of 1982. Toyoda expects to

1,000 units annually. We do not know how many of these have already

been shipped to Toyota. By 1983, Toyoda Machine Works and Toshiba

Seiki, if they should be successful in their modular and simpler spot

welding robots, could accupy a significant market share.

ARC WELDING

sell

Arc welding operations are conducted in an extremely unfavorable

environment where carbonic acid gas, fumes and heat are generated. As

a result, arc welders must wear masks and consequently, must take time

out frequently. Some loss of operating time is, therefore, inevitable.

In addition, the new generation of young workers, being better educated,

tend to shun arc welding. As a consequence, arc welding was particularly

susceptible to robotics.

However, the large-sized robot such as the Kawasaki Unimate, which

could handle heavy loads could hardly be justified economically by an
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers ● 51

Daiwa Securities America Inc. Page -25-

application which largely used light weight welding guns. Yaskawa

Electric Mfg. , at present, dominates the arc welding robot applications

with its relatively low-p riced playback robot. Shinmeiwa developed arc

welding robots for work on heavy plates while Osaka Transformer developed

arc welding robots for work on sheets. Kobe Steel has produced a

more expensive, continuous path control, arc welding robot. Hitachi had

produced two robots suitable for arc welding: a sophisticated intelligent

robot, and a low priced articulated playback robot. Matsushita has introduced a very competitive arc welding robot.

With Matsushita entering the arc welding area and with Hitachi

capable of substantially increasing its output, it is entirely possible that

these two firms will ultimately dominate the arc welding market.

SPRAY PAINTING AND COATING

Painting robots are the third largest type of playback robots and

are now growing at the same rate as spot welding robots but not as fast

as the arc welding robots. Spray painting and coating offer a rich area

of application. To become skilled, a coating worker required 2-3 years

of experience. However, the poor working environment and the tendency

to a more educated society contributed to a developing skilled worker

shortage. The necessity for a large percentage or rework made production planning difficult.

The industrial robot provided certain advantages in painting:

1) They insured stability of product quality and therefore made

possible improved production planning and control. Despite the selection

of the most skilled workman for finish coating, the quality of the finish

varied according to the workers and the conditions of the day. In automobiles, the paint finish of a car, and especially its uniformity, is a

determining element in the Japanese domestic consumer preference.

2) They made possible a multi-product mixed batch coating line.

3) They provided continuous production operation and reduced

the need for intermediate stocks.

4) The manual workers and special purpose automatic coating

machines tended to increase the use of paint to preclude uneven coating,

especially in complicated shapes. In addition, special purpose automatic coating machines tend to overspray paint on smaller products in a

multi-product coating line. In the case of spray painting an auto body,

a savings of 10-20% in the use of paint has been effectuated. Reducing

the amount of paint reduced the need for ventilation and therefore, saved

on energy consumption.
52 ● Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

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5) Spray painting is a very unhealthy job because of the

chemicals and dust. The spray painting robot could free the operator

from staying in the spray booth. It provided a relatively simple way

to meet safety regulations.

Kobe Steel introduced the Norwegian Trallfa spray painters--a

rather expensive robot. Both Hitachi and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries

worked wit h other firms -- Nihon Parkerizing Co. and Iwata Air Compressor

Mfg. Co. respectively to develop playback spray robots. Tokico

offered a large variety of low priced painting robots while Nachi

Fujikoshi offered a spray robot with both remote and direct teaching.

Considering the demand for spray robots (Nissan alone is reportedly

seeking 300 units) it seems evident that production objectives will be

increased. It is still too early to predict the future market share as

changes are expected shortly, at least in Hitachi.

MACHINE LOADING AND UNLOADING

Industrial robots have been applied to a wide variety of production

processes in which the basic breakdown of the process indicated that the

robot is being used primarily, if not exclusively, for (1) loading and

unloading, (2) trans-shipping and (3) palletizing and depalletizing.

This refers to applications in the following areas:

1) die casting

2) forging

3) press work

4) plastic molding

5) machine tool loading

6) heat treatment
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers ● 53

Daiwa Securities America Inc. Page -27-

In each production process, fierce competition exists between those

who designed industrial robots, often relatively unsophisticated, for

particular production processes and the universal robot makers who

offer playback and intelligent robots. In most cases, however, the

specialists seem to have won out as of now. In press working operations

Aida Engineering seems to have won dominance though strongly

challenged by Toshiba Seiki. Similarly, Fujitsu Fanuc seems to enjoy

supremacy now in the loading of machine tools, although Kawasaki H. 1.

has mounted a strong challenge.

In plastic molding (the automatic unloading of injection molded

products) the small manufacturers dominate. Ichikoh Engineering Co.

and Kyoshin Electric offer a complete line of fixed sequence machines.

Star Seiki offers both fixed and variable sequence robots. Sailor Pen,

likewise, offers relatively unsophisticated machines. For unloading

workplaces from a die casting machine, Ichikoh offers its fixed sequence

machine while Shoku and Daido offer variable sequence robots.

For putting workplaces into a furnace Shinko Electric has a

relatively sophisticated variable sequence robot. Nachi Fujikoshi offers

a specially designed robot to tolerate hot temperature which has bee n

used to transfer workplaces from a furnace to a press.

In the forging area, a great number of robot makers offer a variety

of specialized products: Aida, Kobe Steel, Komatsu and Nachi Fujikoshi.

MACHINING

In Japan one operator of NC machine tools serves on average less

than two NC machine tools. This low ratio is the result of manual loading

and unloading of the work pieces, manual disposal of chips and maintenance. Many Japanese firms sought robotic solutions to this problem. One

of the consequences of the application of robots to machining besides

improved productivity was improved production management. Robots

could respond more elastically to changes in production volume and in

the event of temporary requirements for increased production they could

easily be worked overtime. Where the process was computerized, it was

possible to know beforehand when a machinery operation would be completed.

While several other companies manufacture robots for machining

Fujitsu Fanuc dominates this application area with an output of 100 units

monthly. The Fanuc Model O uses the NC of the single machine tool which

it services; the Model 1 and 2 (known in U.S. as 3) have their own NC

and service up to two and five machines respectively. These machines

make possible an unattended machining system that operates automatically

at night.
54 ● Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

Daiwa Securities America Inc. Page -28-

The entry of Fujitsu Fanuc into robots has caused some of its

competitors and some of the machine tool manufacturers to develop and

produce robots of their own. This is especially true of Okuma which

supplies its own NC for its machine tools. In addition, YamatkeHonevwell and Ikegami Iron Works have started Production of NC

robots. Fanuc plans to introduce-additional models in

Fanuc's competitors now are other

have modified their products to service

TRANSFERRING

manufacturers

machine tools.

the summer of 1981,

of robots who

Closely allied to the machine loader/unloaders are the robots which

are engaged primarily in the transfer of materials. Many robots equipped

for specialized processes such as welding and painting can also be

modified for transferring of materials. In addition, many conveyor

equipment manufacturers were compelled to produce robots to compete

with robot manufacturers entering their market. Some robot makers

entered the materials handling market trying to carve a special niche for

themselves.

Shinko Electric, Taiyo, and Kayaba Industry are manufacturers of

machine loading robots that entered into the transfer field. The conveyor manufacturers that entered the field include Tsubakimoto and

Sanki Engineering. The “universal robot makers” offering machines

for transferring include Kawasaki, which offered modifications of its

Unimate for that purpose, Daido Steel, Yaskawa, Nachi Fujikoshi and

Toyoda Machine.

Some firms specifically developed a line of materials handling

robots. Dainichi Kiko has developed a line of heavy duty transfer robots.

Motoda (now Oriental Terminal Products) makes a complete line of what

is described as multi-purpose versatile robots in both variable sequence

and playback versions. Their major, if not exclusive, market, seems to

be the materials handling area but Motoda claims that these robots can

be used for welding and spray painting. Toyo Keiki has developed

a series of variable sequence robots specifically dedicated to palletizing

and depalletizing. The entire area of transfer robots like the area of

machine loading robots is still too greatly splintered to provide a meaningful market share analysis.

ASSEMBLY ROBOTS

Assembly robots capable of inserting, screwdriving, bonding, and

similar p recesses exist largely either in the R & D or the early application

stage in Japan. Most major electrical manufacturers, such as Hitachi,
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers . 55

Daiwa Securities America Inc. Page -29-

Matsushita, Mitsubishi, NEC, Oki, and Fujitsu, have developed fully

— automatic systems for bonding. All these use cameras for visual

perception to position by shape or pattern and in the case of Hitachi

and Mitsubishi Electric, to detect defects. Fuji Electric’s “Checker

robot”, which examines and rejects pharmaceutical pills is not a robot

but does advance both visual (by use of a camera) and tactile perception

for quality inspection.

In addition, special purpose automatic assemblers provided considerable data for constructing assembler robots. Hitachi built for

Nissan an automatic tire fitting system which uses a machine hand to

detect the hub bolts, position them, and tighten them. Hitachi also

developed a fully automatic system for fitting rubber belts to tape

recorders from which they learned assembly principles suitable for

automobile and electric appliance belt fitting.

Hitachi manufacturers an intelligent robot with a 25 step memory

capacity and a 200g. load capacity that can fit different components

one by one in a specified order. The robot moves fast requiring only

1-2 seconds to fit workplaces. Its finger support is flexible to prevent

excessive force. Its positioning precision does not have too close a

tolerance but a special searching function automatically detects the holes

of workplaces and fits them properly even when positioning is not

accurate. An automatic rejecting function within the robot prevents

assembly of defective workplaces.

Both Hitachi and Matsushita have built experimental robots to

assemble electric vacuums.

The larger electronic/electrical manufacturing companies are planning

to robotize 50-75% of their assembly operations by 1985. This would indicate that far more activity and experimentation has taken place than has

so far been publicly revealed. (Still this forecast seems too optimistic

to me. )

In March, 1981, Hitachi publicly announced a task force of 500 key

technology experts to fashion and install a standardized assembly robot

with both visual and tactile sensors, microcomputer control, and

mobility and projected a 60% robotization of its assembly processes by

1985. In April, 1981, Matsushita announced a plan to marshall the

entire staff of its technological division to develop intelligent industrial

robots controlled by microprocessors and modularized (BBS) . Matsushita

revealed that some BBS robots were already functioning at its plants.

The new robots were to be of three types (1) robots that position

workplaces accurately, (2) robots that assemble workplaces, (3) robots

that adjust the finished product to function as originally designed.
56 ● Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

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NEC then reported that it had developed a factory robot that

assembles electronic machinery and appliance parts and components

with a speed of 45 centimeters per second and a positioning accuracy

of only 8 microns. The high precision and speed has been realized by

computerization and by the application of the principle of electronic

magnetic repellence, utilizing the linear-motor levitation technology

that has been used by the Japanese National Railways in developing

the “floating” train. The NEC linear-motor driven robot arm and hand

picks up a machine part or component with a maximum load of 2 kilograms and carries it around by making it float over the work table.

The high precision of movement is achieved by the robots’s set of 16

sensors (visual) supported by a built-in microprocessor. NEC has

been producing these assembly robots so far for its own factories and

those of affiliated companies and in 1981 NEC plans to manufacture 50

units of these assembly robots.

In June, 1981, Ishikawajima Harima Heavy Industries, a close

ally of Toshiba, announced plans to produce its Group Manipulator

Module System (GMMS) with an articulated arm with the most advanced

parallel circuit-type 16K RAMS in its microprocessor. In October,

1981, the GMMS will be tested (possibly at Toshiba?) and hopefully would

be marketed by September, 1982 the latest.

Fujitsu Fanuc has also developed an assembly robot but no details

are known except that it is being used at their new Fuji plant. Fujitsu

is working closely on robot development with its affiliate.

The heavy emphasis on assembly and sense perception by both

the private firms, universities, and public research institutes would

seem to indicate the possibility of achieving the goal of popularization

of assembly robots by 1985. As will be discussed later, the Japanese consider that

the intelligent robot is an important element of export policy for the

future.

BUILDING BLOCK SYSTEM (BBS)

The trend to incorporate various models into a single production line

and to run these lines at higher speeds created some problems for the

conventional universal type spot welding robot. In a mixed-flow production,

line robot capacity was not fully and efficiently utilized. Furthermore, it

required a large floor space for installation.

After a year of development and design and a half year of testing

a new robot, the BBS became operational in May, 1978. The BBS is more

compact in size and therefore, lower in cost than the conventional robot.

It is a fully articulated multi-welding system wherein one control panel

can control simultaneously up to 8 units (48 axes) and a hydraulic unit,
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers ● 57

Daiwa Securities America Inc.

separate from the robot main body, controls three

Page -31-

robots.

A study of two years of operation of the BBS welding in an auto

plant indicated that its investment efficiency was 30% greater than a

conventional robot system. The floor space required was reduced

almost in half. The downtime of a BBS robot was one third of the

downtime of a conventional robot.

BBS is the aim of most of the makers of sophisticated robots.

How many of these building block systems are now operative in Japan

is not known, but the several years of experience and the concentration of private research laboratories on the BBS would tend to substantiate the Japanese expectation of a substantial increase of the BBS

far beyond application only to spot welding. Toyoda Machine Works and

Toshiba Seiki have developed successful BBS robots but detailed production information for these companies and other BBS makers is

currently unavailable.

FROM ASSEMBLY ROBOT TO FLEXIBLE MACHINE SYSTEM

The ultimate aim of the assembly robot is the creation of a comprehensive flexible manufacturing system (FMS) sometimes called the

“ unmanned factory”. Such a system as exemplified by Fuji Electric’s

turnkey noodle factory would combine industrial robots with an automated warehouse, unmanned transport vehicles, belt conveyors, and

computers which would simultaneously operate and record production.

Fujitsu Fanuc has invested Y 8 billion to create such as factory

at Fuji to serve both as an automated manufacturer and a showroom.

Its production capacity can be expressed in terms of monthly sales of

Y 1.5 billion or in terms of production output-- 100 industrial robots,

150 electric discharge wire cutting machines, 100 numerical controls.

The total number of employees is 100--19 machine processors, 63

assemblers, 4 inspectors, and 14 management and clerical personnel. A

factory of this scale normally requires five times as many people.

The Japanese argue that the FMS actually results not only in

reduced labor costs but reduced capital investment. Fuji operates

24 hours a day (unmanned at night) and equipment utilization ratios

are close to the maximum. Furthermore, model changes can be made

easily. With robots, machines need not be replaced or rebuilt; only

the program must be changed. Prior to the introduction of industrial

robots, factories often shut down for months to make the required

alterations for a model change. In addition, a substantial amount of

peripheral factory equipment such as lighting (the robots run at night

in an unlighted plant) , air conditioning and atmosphere control became

unnecessary, at least in those areas where robots work without humans

in proximity. Finally, the miniaturization of industrial robots, which

90-240 0 - 82 - 5
58 ● Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

—

Daiwa Securities America Inc. Page -32-

is beginning to take place, will enable robots to be positioned very close

to each other permitting a higher degree of efficiency in space utilization, a major element in Japan where industrial land is relatively scarce

and high-priced. This plant contrasts sharply with the custom-made,

almost handicraft assembly of many American robot manufacturers. The

ability of Fanuc to increase its output swiftly is understandable; when

they speak of an ultimate capacity of 360 units per month of industrial

robots (which I presume includes both machine loading/unloading robots

now being sold and their new assembly robots) it seems quite feasible.

FUTURE OF JAPAN’S INDUSTRIAL ROBOTS

The demand projections for rapid growth are based on the following

analysis:

(1) The intelligent robot with an internal microcomputer and

sensory perceptions has emerged and its field of application, especially

in assembly and inspection, will widen and expand very rapidly. The

announced plans of the major electrical manufacturers should provide

substantial markets within each company and its affiliates.

(2) The shortage of skilled labor and the aging of the workforce will hasten the acceptance of industrial robots.

(3) The ability of industrial robots to work in adverse work

environments resulting in savings on anti-pollution devices and energy

will also accelerate acceptance of industrial robots.

(4) The government policies of financial aid and accelerated

depreciation will encourage the use of industrial robots among the small

and medium corporations. To the extent that such firms are suppliers

of the larger process industries, they will be compelled to introduce

industrial robots to provide swift on-time delivery of components,

(the Komban System of Toyota) .

(5) To increase Japan’s competitiveness in international markets

not only against the advanced Western nations, but also against its low

labor cost competitors in East Asia (South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore,

Hong Kong) , Japanese firms are being compelled to automate.

(6) As demand for goods becomes less uniform and more

diversified, small and medium batch multi-product production and

constant modification will become predominant. The industrial robot,

especially the BBS, has greater flexibility than the dedicated, single

purpose automatic equipment.

(7) Japan has made robots a top priority both for research and

production and an unrestrained effort is being made in that direction.

(8) The Japanese expect a substantial expansion of robots to areas
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers ● 59

Daiwa Securities America Inc. Page -33-

other than the process industries such as electrical and automobile

manufacturing. In agriculture, robots will be used for crop dusting

and spraying chemicals, harvesting fruit trees, tilling ground and even

milking and feeding of cows. The Japanese expect robots to be used

in many aspects of forestry.

A top priority has been given to underwater geological surveying

and welding and machining (under 300 meters) . Komatsu already has

an underwater robot being used in bridge building. In mining, robots

are being developed to work coal and ore faces. Robots are also being

planned for building construction (especially multi-storied) and road

construction. In the service industries robots are being developed to

clean walls and floors of buildings, cleaning of boat hulls, cleaning

electrical insulators in nuclear energy. The Japanese also expect to

expand robot use in the hospital and the home. However, it should be

emphasized that the top priority for the first half of the decade remains

the intelligent robot for assembly.

(9) Japan expects to be a major exporter of industrial robots.

This requires some additional comment.

The Japanese expect that Western Europe and the U.S. , as well

as Eastern Europe, will make strong efforts to increase worker productivity. These “reindustrialization” programs will necessarily

involve increased use of industrial robots and Japan plans to export

them. While exports of robots were less than 2% in 1980, the Japanese

expect that in 1985 and 1990, exports will constitute about 20% of

p reduction.

The Japanese attitude is expressed in the following view of Machida

of the Long Term Credit Bank: “The industrial robots presently in

use are, technologically speaking, still in their infancy. During the

1980’s they will mature from boyhood to the young adult stage. At

present, Japan is the number one country qualified to be the parent of

this child”.

Accepting the challenge of Japan’s lack of innovativeness and

creativity, Machida wrote “It has been said that Japan cannot be victorious

in the pioneer technology which is producing sophisticated, knowledgeintensive products because we do not possess high creativity. However,

the expanding exports of Japanese intelligent robots will soon bear testimony to the fact of our international competitive strength, not only in

improvement technology and application technology, but in pioneer

technology as well”.
60 . Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics —

Daiwa Securities America Inc. Page -34-

Machida concludes his overview asserting that the “intelligent robot

is representative of the leading edge of technology products” and that

“the growth of the industrial robot industry will bear eloquent testimony to our strong international competitiveness even in the area of

state-of-the-art technology”. These views reflect the Japanese

attitude of placing major stress on the export of intelligent robots

as proof of Japan’s creativity.

Returning to the estimated demand forecast, the most substantial

growth through the eighties will be the intelligent robot. Playback

and NC robots will grow at an accelerating rate in the first half of

the decade, but should slow down in the second half. Variable

sequence robots will also grow significantly in the first five years but

level off in the second five years. The manual manipulators and fixed

sequence machines show growth but their total share of output will

decline significantly in value terms. Thus, in 1974, the sophisticated

robots constituted 10. 8% of total value; in 1980 26. 4%, in 1985, 41%,

and in 1990, 45%.

In terms of production, the two processes certain to grow throughout the decade will be assembly and inspection and measurement, probably

at a rate of almost 40% annually. Spot welding, arc welding, and machine

loading will continue to grow but at a decelerating rate. Spray painting

should maintain continuous growth. In 1985 the production process for

which robots are produced have been estimated as follows (in % of value).

1)

2)

3)

4)

5)

6)

7)

8)

How will the U.S. and

Assembly 21. 7%

Machine Tool Process 13.1

Arc Welding 10.5

Inspection 10.0

Spot Welding 7.5

Spray Painting 5.0

Molding 3.3

Others 28.9

Japan compare in the future? Using the U.S.

definition of robots the following table- includes the latest estimates.

TABLE 15

U.S. -Japan Comparison

Industrial Robots (U. S. Definition)

Units Value (million $)

U.S . Japan U.S. Japan

1980 1,269 3,200 100.5 180

1985 5,195 31,900 441.2 2,150

1990 21,575 57,450 1,884.0 4,450
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers ● 61

Daiwa Securities America Inc. Page -35-

This is probably the best estimate of the future, assuming a continuation of those elements presently at work in each country. If we learn

anything from history, it is that the future is never a simple continuation of the present. Therefore, hopefully the estimates remain “tentative

and preliminary”.

FOOTNOTE : While I alone am responsible for this report and its conclusions, many others provided assistance. In particular, Mr. Karl Kamita

of Daiwa Securities ably researched and translated numerous articles

on robotics in Japan. The works of Mr. Yonemoto of the JIRA, Mr. Machida

of the Long Term Credit Bank of Japan, Prof. Ueda of Nagoya University,

and Mr. Engelberger and Mr. Tanner, two “veterans” of U.S. robotics,

not only added to my fund of knowledge but greatly influenced my

thinking.
62 ● Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

INDUSTRIAL ROBOT TECHNOLOGY AND PRODUCTIVITY IMPROVEMENT

James S. Albus

Industrial Systems Division

National Bureau of Standards

Robots have received a great deal of publicity recently.

The movie “Star Wars” and several television series such as

“The Six Million Dollar Man” and “The Bionic Woman” have

raised the consciousness of the public to the subject of

robots. The enormous influx of foreign cars manufactured in

part by robots has aroused awareness of the press and many

politicians to the fact that robots can have a profound effect on industrial productivity. Many people today believe

that the robot revolution is well under way, that factories

are full of armies of highly intelligent robots, and that

human workers are being displaced in droves. The facts are

quite different.

First of all, there are only about 3000 robots installed in

the entire country, secondly, the great majority of these

are quite primitive, with no capacity to see or feel or

respond to their environment in any significant way.

Most people think of a robot as an android, which walks and

talks, sees and feels, and looks much like C3P0, or at least

R2D2. Real robots are much more primitive. In its simplest

form a robot is nothing more than a mechanical device that

can be programmed to perform some useful act of manipulation

or locomotion under automatic control. An industrial robot

is a device that can be programmed to move some gripper or

tool through space so as to accomplish a useful industrial

task.

These robots are typically programmed by recording each task

as a series of points in space. This recording is then simply replayed whenever the task is to be performed.

This simple procedure is adequate to perform a surprising

number of industrial tasks, from spot welding automobile bodies, tending die casting machines, loading and unloading

machine tools and presses, spray painting, and performing a

wide variety of materials handling tasks.

Even arc welding can be performed by a robot which can neither see nor feel, so long as the parts to be welded are positioned in exactly the right place, and the welding parameters are controlled by some automatic system.

However, the great majority of industrial tasks are beyond

the capacities of present day robot technology. Most tasks

are too complex and unstructured, or involve too many
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers . 63

uncertainties, or require too much ability to see and feel

and adapt to changing circumstances. Before robots can sig–

nificantly impact productivity of the economy as a whole,

they must be used in hundreds of thousands and even millions

of applications. This will not be possible before a large

number of technical problems are solved.

TECHNICAL PROBLEM AREAS

One of the first problems is accuracy. Robot positioning

accuracy needs to be improved. Although the repeatability

of most robots is on the order of 0.050 inch over its working volume (and in some cases as good as .005 inch), the absolute positioning accuracy may be off as much as O. 250

inch, or even O. 500 inch in some regions of the reach envelope. Thus, it is not possible to program a robot to go

to an arbitrary mathematically defined point in a coordinate

space and have any assurance that the robot will come closer

than a half of an inch. This creates major problems in programming a robot from a computer terminal, or in transferring programs from one robot to another. Each robot must be

taught its program separately by leading it point by point

through its job, a tedious and costly task.

Presumable/ this accuracy problem could be solved through

closer robot manufacturing tolerances) although not without

cost. alternatively, calibration procedures such as illus–

trated in Figure 1, might allow each robot to offset its

off-line program points to compensate for its mechanical

inaccuracies. However, no efficient methods of robot calibration have yet been developed> and robot control software

is not presently designed to use calibration tables for improving absolute positioning accuracy. Until this absolute

position accuracy problem is solved) robot assembly in the

small batch environment will be uneconomical. Teaching a

robot every point in the trajectory of a complex assembly

task is a time consuming job which may take many times

longer than would be required to perform the same task by

hand. Thus, using a robot for small lot batch assembly cannot be economical until software can be efficiently produced

by off-line programming (i.e., programming from a computer

terminal}.

Second, dynamic performance must be improved. Present day

robots are too slow and clumsy to effectively compete with

human labor in assembly. Two possible exceptions to this

are in arc welding where speed is governed by the welding

process itself, and spot welding where the task corresponds

to moving a heavy welding gun through a simple string of

points in space -- a procedure which the robot is particularly adept at executing. However, if robots are to perform

other types of assembly and construction tasks, they must be
64 ● Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

able to execute much more complex routines with much greater

grace, dexterity, and speed than they are now capable of.

Control systems need to be alternately stiff and compliant

along different axes in space (which do not generally coincide with joint coordinates). This requires much more sophisticated cross-coupled servo control computations than

are presently employed.

Furthermore/ robot structures are typically quite massive

and unwieldly. Most robots can lift only about one tenth of

their own weight. Many cannot even do that. New mechanical

designs using light weight materials such as carbon filament

epoxies and hollow tubular construction are needed. Advanced control systems that can take advantage of such light

weight structures and high speeds will be a major research

project.

Much also remains to be done in gripper design. Typically,

robot hands consist of pinch-Jaw grippers with only one degree of freedom -- open and shut. Contrast this with the

human hand which has five fingers, each with four degrees of

freedom, No robot has come close to duplicating the dexterity of the human hand, and it is not likely that one will in

this century. Certainly, dexterous hands with Jointed

fingers for industrial robots are a long way in the future.

The problem is not so much in building such a mechanical

structure, but in controlling it. No one has any idea how

to design control algorithms to make use of such complexity

and very little research is being done in this area.

Third, sensors of many different types must be developed.

Robots must become able to see, feel, and sense the position

of objects in a number of different ways. Processing of

visual data must become faster and be able to determine

3-dimensional shapes and relationships. Robot grippers must

become able to feel. the presence of objects and sense the

forces developed on those ObjectS. Proximity sensors are

needed on robot fingertips to enable the robot to measure

the final few millimeters before contacting (objects. Longer

range proximity sensors are needed on the robot arm to avoid

colliding with unexpected obstacles. Force and touch sensors are needed to detect and measure contact forces. A

variety of acoustic, electromagnetic} optical, x-ray, and

particle detectors are needed to sense the presence of various materials such as metals , ferromagnetic, plastics,

fluids, and limp goods, and to detect various types of flaws

in parts and assemblies. Both the sensing devices and the

software for analyzing sensory data represent research and

development problems of enormous magnitude.

Robot sensors is an area where there is much research activity. Robot vision is by far the most popular research
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers ● 65

topic, and also probably the most difficult. A computer

mus t treat a visual image as an array of brightness dots

called picture elements, or pixels. A typica l scene may

consist o f from 16 thousand to over a million pixels. Interpretation of such a large volume of data is an enormous

task even for a high speed computer. It often takes many

seconds to several minutes to analyse a single picture by

computer. This is far too slow for the robot to respond in

a timely fashion to what it sees. Various tricks are used

to speed up this response time. One is to illuminate the

scene so that the objects appear as black and white

silhouettes. Another is to assure that no two Objects of

interest touch or overlap. However, even under such artificial circumstances robot vision is a very complex problem

and subject to many difficulties. Such techniques obviously

limit the use of robot vision to a few select applications.

Other robot sensory inputs such as touch and force appear to

be simpler in principle, but much less work has been done in

these areas.

Fourth, control systems are needed which can take advantage

of sophisticated sensory data from a large number of different types of sensors simultaneously. Present control

systems are severely limited in their ability to modify a

robot’s behavior in response to sensed conditions. Robot

control systems need to be able to accept feedback data at a

variety of levels of abstraction and have control loops with

a variety of loop delays and predictive intervals. See for

example, Figure 2. Sensory data used in tight servo loops

for high speed or high precision motions must be processed

and introduced into the control system with delays of no

more than a few milliseconds. Sensory data used for detecting the position and orientation of objects to be approached

must be available within hundreds of milliseconds. Sensory

data needed for recognizing the identity of objects or the

relationship between groups of Objects can take seconds.

Control systems that are properly organized in a hierarchi–

cal fashion so that they can accommodate a variety of senso–

ry delays of this type are not available on any commercial

robot.

Fifth, robot control systems need to have much more sophisticated internal models of the environment in which they

work. Future robot control systems will have data bases

similar to those generated by Computer–Aided-Design (CAD)

systems, and used for computer graphics displays. These can

describe the three dimensional relationships of both the

workplace and the workplaces. Such data bases are needed to

generate expectations as to what parts should look like to

the vision system, or what they should feel like to the

touch sensors, or where hidden or occluded features are
66 ● Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

located. Eventual1y, such internal models might be used in

the automatic generation of robot software; for example, by

describing how a finished assembly should look, or even how

each stage of an assembly or construction task should appear

in sequence.

Sixth, techniques for developing robot software must be

vastly improved. Programming-by-teaching is impractical for

small lot production) especiall y for complex tasks where

sensory interaction is involved. Shop floor personnel unskilled in computers must be able to instruct robots in what

to do and what to look for in making sensory decisions.

Eventually it will be necessary to have a whole range of

programming languages and debugging tools at each level of

the sensory-control hierarchy. The development of compilers

and interpreters and other software development tools, as

well as techniques for making use of knowledge of the environment derived from a number of different sensors and CAD

data-bases are research topics that will require hundreds of

person-years of highly skilled systems software talent.

Seventh, interfaces need to be defined in some standardized

way, so that large numbers of robots, machine tools, sensors, and control computers can be connected together in integrated systems. Trends in the field of computer-aidedmanufacturing are toward distributed computing systems

wherein a large number of computers, robots, and machine

tools all interact and cooperate as an integrated system.

This creates enormous software problems. Particularly in

the case where sensors are used to detect variations in the

environment and to modify the control output to compensate

for those variations, the software can become extremely difficult to write and virtually impossible to debug. In order

for such systems to work at all, it is necessary to partition the control problem into modular components and then

develop interface standards by which the various system components can communicate with each other. See Figures 2 and

3.

It is often felt that standards are an inhibiting influence

on a newly developing field –- that they impede innovation

and stifle competition. In fact, just the opposite is true.

Well chosen interface standards promote market competition,

technology development, and technology transfer. They make

it possible for many different manufacturers to produce

various components of modular systems. Standard interfaces

assure that multivendor systems will fit together and

operate correctly. Individual modules can be optimized and

upgraded without making the entire system obsolete. Interface standards also make it possible for automation to be

introduced incrementally -- one module at a time, Systems
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers ● 67

can b e mad e upward compatible and automated piecewise.

Thus, users can test the automation waters gradua1ly,

without a large initial capital barrier.

Eighth, many potential robot applications require robot mobility. Most robots today are bolted to the floor or to a

tabletop. Small robots can reach only one or two feet while

larger ones can grasp objects nine or ten feet away. But

many applications need robots which can maneuver over much

larger distances. For example, a robot used to load a

machine tool typically spends most of its time waiting for

the machine tool to finish its operations. Sometimes a single robot can be positioned between two or more machine

tools so that it can be more fully utilized. However, this

leads to severe crowding of the work environment and in many

cases is simply not practical. There are a few applications

in which robots have been mounted on rails so that they can

shuttle between several machines. Unfortunately} to date

this has proven too expensive and cumbersome for wide scale

use.

In many applications, particularly in arc welding of large

structures like ships or buildings it is not practical to

bring the work to the robot; the robot must go to the work,

sometimes over distances of many tens of feet. One example

is in the construction of large machinery such as road

building equipment. Another example is in the building of

ships. A good ship building robot would be able to maneuver

inside odd shaped compartments, climb over ribs and bulkheads, scale the side of the ship’s hull, and weld seams

several hundred feet in length. Similar mobility requirements exist in the construction of buildings. Construction

robots will need to be able to manuever through the cluttered environment of a building site. In some cases they

will need to climb stairs, and work from scaffolding.

Robots will also be used in undersea exploration, drilling,

and mining. Robot vehicles will someday explore the moon

and planets. These applications will require significant

new developments in mobility mechanisms.

Robot mobility in the factory using rails, carts, or overhead conveyors is a relatively simple problem that undoubtedly will be solved in the decade of the 1980’s. Robot mobility on the construction site, under the sea, and in outer

space however, is another issue entirely. The sensor, data

processing, and control problems associated with these aspects of robot mobility will require gears of concentrated

research.

For the most part, these eight problem areas encompass pro–

found scientific issues and engineering problems which will

.
68 ● Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

require much more research and development. It may be possible to improve the mechanical accuracy of robots, and to

improve servo performance with little more than careful engineering. But much more fundamental research and development will be required before the sensor, contro1, internal

modeling, software generation systems interface and mobility problems are solved. Much remains to be done in sensor

technology to improve the performance, reliability) and cost

effectiveness of all types of sensory transducers. Even

more remains to be done in improving the speed and sophistication of sensory processing algorithms and special purpose

hardware for recognizing features and analyzing patterns

both in space and time. The computing power that is required for high speed processing of visual and acoustic patterns will even require new types of computer architecture.

Sensory-interactive control systems that can respond to

various kinds of sensory data at many different levels of

abstraction are still very much in the research phase.

Current commercial robot control systems do not even allow

real-time six-axis incremental movements in response to sensory data. None have convenient interfaces by which sensory

data of many different kinds can be introduced into the servo loops on a millisecond time scale for true real-time sensory interaction. None of the commercial robot control systems have anything approximating CAD data bases or computer

graphics models of the environment and workplaces. Finally,

current programming techniques are time consuming and not

capable of dealing with internal knowledge or sophisticated

sensory interactions.

These are very complex problems that will require many

person-years of research effort. It is thus not surprising

that the robot applications are still extremely limited,

WHAT LIES IN THE FUTURE?

All of the problems listed above are amenable to solution.

It is only a matter of time and expenditure of resources before sensors and control systems are developed that can produce dexterous, graceful, skilled behavior in robots. Even–

tually, robots will be able to store and recall knowledge

about the world that will enable them to behave intelligently and even to show a measure of insight regarding the spatial and temporal relationships inherent in the workplace.

High order languages, computer-aided-instruction, and sophisticated control systems will eventually make it possible

to instruct robots using much the same vocabulary and syntax

that one might use in talking to a skilled worker.

There is no question that given enough time and resources

robotics will eventually become a significant factor in
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers . 69

increasing productivity in industrial production. The question is: How much time and how many resources will be required before this becomes a reality?

In my opinion more than a few tens of millions} and less

than a few hundreds of millions of dollars for research and

development will be required to make robots capable of performing a sufficient number of tasks to make significant

productivity improvements in industrial manufacturing. More

than a few hundred and less than a few thousand personyears of high level scientific and engineering talent will

be needed before robot software of sufficient complexity can

be generated economically for small lot batch production.

In other words, a national research and development effort

of at least one, and perhaps two, orders of magnitude

greater than what has been done to date will be required to

produce a significant impact on industrial productivity.

And more than just total dollars spent is important. Robotics research is systems research. At least a few stable,

consistently well funded research centers of excellence will

be required.

The questions then are:

“How fast are we progressing along the road to the solutions?”

and

“Who are the researchers that are leading the way?”

In the United States there are four types of research laboratories:

1. University

2. Non-profit

3. Private ‘Industry

4. Government

UNIVERSITY RESEARCH

Among the principal university labs are:

Stanford University: The robotics effort at Stanford is of

long standing, Tom Binford has been doing pioneering work

in three-dimensional vision for over a decade. His students

have developed one of the most advanced robot programming

languages available today called AL, for Arm Language. The

Stanford artificial intelligence lab has produced a long

list of ground breaking research projects in manipulation

hand-eye coordination) and robot assembly. Stanford is

presently working on robot vision, a three-fingered hand,

force sensing, robot programming languages, and geometric

modeling for vision and programming. They also have a

cooperative program with Unimation for robot mobility.
70 . Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

Stanford received about $200K in FY81 from NSF. There are

about 14 graduate students working on various projects.

MIT has had a major robotics effort at least as long as

Stanford. At present, Danny Hillis and John Hollerbach are

building robot skin made of thin sheets of rubber lined with

tiny wires that detect pressure. These are being used to

give robots a sense of touch, MIT also is active in robot

vision and programming languages. Tom Sheridan of MIT is

working on Supervisory Control of Teleoperators. This work

is currently directed toward undersea work and is partially

funded by Naval Ocean Systems Center in San Diego. Total

MIT funding is around one million per year. Office of Naval

Research provides approximately 700K of this amount.

Carnegie-Mellon University has recently formed a Robotics

Institute directed by Raj Reddy with funding from Westinghouse, ONR, DARPA and other industrial sponsors. The Institute has programs in flexible assembly, machining, sensory

systems, vision, mobility and intelligent systems. In its

less than two years of existence the Institute has recorded

significant achievements in the expansion of sensory capabilities of machines, the integration of several machines

into cells carrying out complex tasks, the application of

vision and optics to a wide range of industrial tasks, the

development of new robot mechanisms, and the application of

artificial intelligence to the management of evolving intelligent technologies. Total funding is over $3 million, making it one of the best funded major university projects.

Office of Naval Research contributes approximately 500K per

year to Carnegie-Mellon University,

Rhode Island University has an impressive effort directed by

John Birk on general methods to enable robots with vision to

acquire, orient, and transport workplaces. The Rhode Island

robot was the first to pick parts out of a bin of randomly

oriented parts. Rhode Island is also doing work on dexterous robot grippers and robot programming languages.

Funding from NSF is $210K per year and from industrial affiliates, about $750K per gear.

University of Florida under Del Tessar is doing work in

teleoperators, force feedback, and robot kinematics and

dynamics. Funding from the Department of Energy, NSF, and

State of Florida amounts to about $1 million per year.

Purdue University is doing research in robot control systems, robot programming, languages, machine vision, and

modeling of part flow through industrial plants. Total NSF

funding to Purdue is about $400K over a four year period.

A number of Universities have smaller robotics efforts, or
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers ● 71

efforts in related areas.

The University of Massachusetts is doing work in visual in–

terpretation of natural scenes and design of parts for au–

tomatic assembly. ($125K per year) They have just received

an NSF grant for $157K to study “Economic Applications of

Assembly Robots”.

University of Maryland Computer Vison lab under Azriel

Rosenfeld is doing work on a number of image processing projects including robot vision and methods for using visual

knowledge in interpreting images. (over $1 Million per

year)

University of Rochester under Herb Voelcker is developing

advanced methods of representing three dimensional shapes in

a computer memory. The result of this work is a computer

graphics language called PADL which is profoundly influencing the way future computer graphics systems are being

designed. Much of this is being done with NSF funding.

($85, 576 in FY81)

Rensselear Polytech Institute under Herb Freeman is also

studying the generation of computer models for threedimensional curved surface objects. ($98K)

University of Arizona is doing teleoperator work. ($113K)

University of Wisconsin is doing work in machine vision.

($60K)

Ohio State University under Robert McGhee is working on

dynamics and control of industrial manipulators and legged

locomotion systems. ($125K from NSF) DARPA has recently

funded McGhee to build and test a man-carrying walking

machine. This project is funded at $250K in FY81 and $630K

in FY82. Battelle Labs are cooperating with Ohio State

University in this effort.

University of Illinois, University of Pennsylvania, University of Washington, and the University of Texas all have

small research projects in robotics, and robot related work.

Total National Science Foundation funding for university

research in robotics and related fields is on the order of

$5 million per year. Additional university funding from

other sources such as industrial affiliates and internal

university funding may run another $4 million per year.

University research tends toward small projects of one or

two professors and a few graduate students. The average NSF

grant in robotics and related fields is around $150K per

year.
72 ● Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

Although support of university research by industry is on

the rise, it is still small by European or Japanese standards. University efforts tend to be fragmented, progress

is sporadic, and the issues addressed are often unrelated to

the problems of industrial manufacturing.

NONPROFIT LABS

C. S. Draper Labs with Jim Nevins and Dan Whitney have been

studying part-mating science and assembly system design for

a number of years. They have performed a variety of assembly experiments studied the use of force feedback, and

developed a theory of the use of passive compliance in

part-mating. Draper has also done economic modeling for

designing industrial systems, and real-time simulation of

the space shuttle remote manipulator system for NASA. NSF

funding is about $200K per year. Draper also has a number

of industrial clients for whom it performs design and construction of advanced assembly systems. Total funding is

about $1 Million per year.

SRI International has an extensive robot research program

that dates back to the SHAKEY Artificial Intelligence project that was funded by ARPA in the late 1960’s. Presently

SRI’s program is headed by David Nitzan. Emphasis is on

machine vision for inspection and recognition. Some very

sophisticated robot vision research is being done on overlapping parts using structured light and a combination of

binary and gray-scale vision. Work is also being done on

printed-circuit board inspection, programmable assembly,

vision-guided arc welding, and semiautomatic process planning. Funding from NSF is about $350K per year with about

$350K per year from industrial affiliates. SRI was the

first robotics lab to develop an industrial affiliates program. Office of Naval Research contributes approximately

250K for research in communication and negotiation between

cooperating robots to distribute their workload. Additional

$250K per year funding from NSF started in August 1981 for

work on printed-circuit board inspection.

PRIVATE INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH LABS

General Motors has established a major robotics research effort at the G. M. Research Labs in Warren Michigan. They

have concentrated on vision and have produced a new robot

vision system called “CONSIGHT”. This system has a unique

method for obtaining silhouette images of parts on a conveyor belt that does not require back lighting and is not

dependent on contrast between the part and the belt. General Motors is also interested in small parts assembly by

robots and automatic inspection. Several years ago they

contracted with Unimation to produce the PUMA robot; a
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers ● 73

small, accurate, computer controlled robot designed for assembly.

General Electric is becoming very active in robot research.

G. E. has a substantial research effort in robot assembly,

robot vision, robot controllers and new VLSI micro circuit

technology. They have designed a very impressive laboratory

robot which embodies a number of innovative concepts. G. E.

also has a robot demonstration facility where they have one

of almost every robot manufactured today. As a part of this

facility they offer courses in robot programming and applications engineering. G. E. has also announced intentions of

marketing the Italian PRAGMA robot in this country under the

name of ALLEGRO, as well as the Hitachi Process Robot.

Westinghouse has established a productivity center in Pittsburgh with a robotics research lab containing 15 robots of

all different kinds. This center supports Carnegie-Mellon

University with $1 million per year grant for manufacturing

research. Westinghouse also has a cost sharing project with

NSF called APAS for Adaptable Programmable Assembly System.

This research project will be complete in 1982. It has been

funded by NSF at about $500K per year. Westinghouse also

has a R&D center which is working with the University of

Florida to assess what teleoperator technology is needed for

nuclear power plants.

IBM has been involved in robotics research for a number of

years. IBM has developed robot programming languages called

AUTOPASS and EMILY and has studied the problem of robot assembly. IBM has also developed its own robot which it uses

in its own manufacturing operations. All of the IBM robotics effort is internally funded and details of the projects

are not available.

Texas Instruments also has developed a robot which they use

for assembly and testing of hand calculators. No details of

this effort are available.

Martin-Marietta has a robotics effort directed primarily to–

ward NASA and DOD interests. They are working on automated

diagnosis and checkout of avionics, cockpit simplification,

and various autonomous devices. Martin is also studying the

speed requirements for space shuttle manipulators, coordinate transformations, and two arm coordination. Funding is

about $3 million per year.

Automatix is a small new company with a heavy emphasis on

robotics research. Robot vision, microcomputer control sys–

tems, and applications engineering in arc welding systems

are their main target areas.

90-240 0 - 82 - 6
74 ● Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

Machine Intelligence Corporation is another small company,

whose technical staff includes the principals who pioneered

robot vision at SRI International. Machine Intelligence

Corporation manufactures computer vision systems to be incorporated into turnkey inspection, material-handling and

assembly systems. In cooperation with Unimation Corporation, they have developed the Univision system, the first

commercially-available “seeing” robot, marrying an advanced

vision system with the PUMA robot, programmable under a spe–

cial language “VAL". They have an NSF Small Business Inov–

novation grant for research on a method of person/robot communication, to permit programming a robot without need for a

professional programmer.

ROBOT MANUFACTURERS

The major robot manufacturers, of course, also conduct a

substantial amount of research. Unimation is working on advanced control systems, calibration techniques, mobility

systems, and programming techniques.

Cincinnati Milicron has a research group working on new control system architectures) programming languages} and

mechanical design.

Prab-Versatran, Autoplace, Advanced Robotics, Devilbiss,

Mobot, Nordson, Thermwood, ASEA, KUKA, Tralfa, U. S. Robots,

and perhaps ten other small new robot companies are all aggressively developing new and improved product lines.

The level of funding for research by the robot manufacturers

is proprietary. However, based on the aggregate sales of

about $150 million for the entire U. S. robot industry, it

is probably around $15 million per year and scattered over

about twenty companies. One or two of the largest manufacturers are spending around %5 Million per year on research.

However, it is doubtful if more than three manufacturers are

spending more than $1 million per year.

GOVERNMENT RESEARCH

The National Bureau of Standards is pursuing research related to interface standards, performance measures, and programming language standards for robot systems and integrated

computer-aided-manufacturing systems. This work focuses on

advanced concepts for sensory-interactive control systems,

modular distributed systems, interfaces between modules, and

sensor interfaces to the control systems of robots and

machine tools. Funding from the Department of Commerce is

about $1. 5 million per year.

The Air Force Integrated Computer Aided Manufacturing (ICAM)
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers ● 75

project has funded several robot development and implementation projects. A contract with General Dynamics introduced

robots into drilling and routing applications in aircraft

manufacturing. A contract with McDonnell-Douglas resulted

in a robot programming language based on the APT N/C tool

language, A contract with Lockheed Georgia produced a study

of potential future aerospace applications for robots. Total funding was about $1 million per year. This work is now

completed. Technical Modernization, a related program is

presently funding General Dynamics to design several aspects

of an automated factory. Funding for this is about $4 million per year. Total ICAM funding is $17 million per year

for computer based information, planning and control, and

systems engineering methodologies for increased automation.

Estimated future ICAM funding for robotics is $2 million per

year.

NASA has a number of small robotics projects at several of

its centers. JPL has a project in stereo vision, force

feedback grippers, and the use of automatic planning programs for mission sequencing applications. Langley Research

Center is doing research on robot servicing of spacecraft.

Marshall Space Flight Center has developed a prototype robot

arm for satellite refurbishing and is working on free-flying

teleoperators. Johnson Space Center is managing the

development of the space shuttle remote manipulator system.

The total NASA reseach budget for automation is about $2

million.

The Naval Air Rework Facility in San Diego is funding the

development of robots to remove rivets and fasteners from

airplane wings,} to strip and repaint aircraft, and to perform wire assembly. Total funding for these three projects

is about $3 million per year.

The Naval Ocean Systems Center is currently exploring various military applications of robot and teleoperator systems.

There are specific interests in teleoperated and robot submersibles, teleoperated and robot land vehicles, teleoperated lighter than air vehicles, underwater manipulators,

stereo optic and acoustic vision, remote presence, autonomous robot knowledge representation and decision making

and complex robot system specification and verification.

These interests are distributed among six projects funded at

a total of $650K per year.

The total government funding for robotics is about $10 million per year.

OVERSEAS RESEARCH

Overseas robotics efforts are considerably better funded.
76 . Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

Although exact figures are hard to obtain, most knowledgeable observers estimate that the Japanese are spending from

three to ten times as much as the United States on robotics

and related research. The Western Europeans are estimated

to be spending from two to four times as much as the U. S.

Certainly the corporate giants of Europe and Japan are

heavily involved. Fiat, Renault, Olivetti, and Volkswagen

have all developed their own robots, and many other European

firms are marketing a wide variety of very sophisticated

robots. In Japan, Kawasaki, Hitachi, Yasakawa, Fanuc, and

Misubitshi all have major research laboratories and are ag–

gressively marketing a wide variety of industrial robots.

Fanuc has teamed up with Siemens of Germany to market a very

competitive line of robots under the name General Numeric.

European and Japanese university efforts are heavily subsidized by the respective governments and university-industry

collaboration is very close. Many university research la–

boratories are elaborately equipped with the most modern N/C

machine tools and the best robots. Many of these machines

are donated by private industry. Government support for

salaries and overhead makes it possible for the universities

in Europe and Japan to sustain large and coherent research

programs. Even if the total U. S. effort were equivalent,

the lack of U. S. centers of excellence supported on a consistent long term basis would put the U. S. at a serious

disadvantage. The fact is, U. S. robotics research efforts

are neither better funded nor better organized than those of

our overseas trading partners. The Japanese have made the

development of the automatic factory a high priority item of

national policy. European research is heavily subsidized by

the government funds. In both places robotics technology is

treated as crucial to national economic development.

IMPLEMENTATION

In the United States at present, there are only about 3000

robots installed. That’s less than the number of workers

employed in a single factory in many companies. That’s less

than the graduating class of some high schools in this country. Today, there is a bigger market for toy robots than

for real robots. So at least for the present, robots are

having almost no effect one way or another on overall productivity in this country. Today, robots are being produced

in the United States at the rate of about 1500 per year.

Predictions are that this will probably grow to between

20,000 and 60,000 robots per year by the year 1990. In other words the production rate is growing at about a factor of

10 to 30 per decade. At that rate the U. S. will be lucky

to have a million robots in operation before the year 2000.

This means that unless there is some drastic change in the

presently projected trends, there won’t be enough robots in
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers . 77

operation to have a significant impact on the overall productivity of the nation's economy before the turn of the

century.

(Of course, there will be some specific areas where the impact o f robots will be large. In areas like automobile

spot-welding, robots have already had some effect. By the

mid 1980’s there may be a significant effect on productivity

in arc welding.

Arc welding is a hot, dirty, unpleasant job where the welder

must wear heavy protective clothing and must work in the

presence of a shower of hot sparks and choking smoke. Typically a human welder cannot keep his torch on the work more

than 30% of the time. A robot welder, on the other hand can

keep its torch on the work about 90% of the time. Thus,

even though the robot cannot weld any faster than a human,

it can turn out about 3 times as much work.

Unfortunately, present day robots cannot set up their own

work. That requires a human assistant. So this reduces the

productivity advantage. Also, the robot must be programmed

to perform the welding task. Typically this takes much

longer than would be required to actually perform a weld.

Thus, unless the robot is used to perform many repetitions

of the same welding task there is no productivity gain.

Of course, once robots become intelligent enough to assemble

and set up their own work, productivity will improve. Once

robots become clever enough to look at the job and figure

out where to put the weld, productivity will improve even

more. Eventually, welding robots will be sufficiently sophisticated to work from plans stored in computer memory and

to correct errors which may occur during a job. Welding

robots will then be able to work nights and weekends (four

shifts per week) completely without human supervision. At

that point productivity improvements over present methods of

many hundreds of percent become possible. Unfortunately, we

are a long way from that today. There are many difficult

research and development problems that must be solved first.

Unless the level of effort in software development is increased many fold, these improvements will not be realized

for many years.

Let’s look at another industry, the metal cutting industry,

where robots a r e already being used to load and unload

machine tools. This is a relatively simple task, so long as

the parts are presented to the robot in a known position and

orientation. During the 1980’s, robot sensory and control

capabilities will improve to the point where robots can find

and load unoriented parts, or in some cases, even pick parts

out of a bin filled with randomly oriented parts lying on
78 . Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

top of each other. This may improve productivity by hundreds of percent because it will make it possible to install

robots in many exisiting plants without major re-engineering

of production methods. For example, in conventional N/C

machine shops a single machinist could set up several

machines which could then run for extended periods unattended. In some cases robot tended machines may run overnight

and on weekends without human intervention.

By 1990 robots m a y begin to have a significant impact on

mechanical assembly. There has been a great deal of

research effort spent on robot assembly. Unfortunately/ the

results have not been spectacular--yet. On the one hand,

robots cannot compete with classical so-called “hard automation” in assembly of mass produced parts. General purpose

machines like robots are still too slow and too expensive to

be economical for mass production assembly tasks. On the

other hand, robots cannot yet compete with human assembly

workers in small lot assembly. Humans are incredibly adaptable, dexterous, as well as fast, skilled, and relatively

cheap compared to robots. A human has two hands and ten

fingers with arms, and shoulders mounted on a mobile platform equipped with a total of 58 degrees of freedom. The

human has a fantastically sophisticated vision system and

can be programmed to perform a wide variety of tasks quite

easily. Even in a relatively routine task such as the a s –

sembly of an automobile alternator (performed at the C.S.

Draper Lab, Cambridge, MA), test results indicated that

robot assembly would be only marginally effective economically even after every phase of the task had been optimized.

Nevertheless, progress is being made and will continue.

Robot capabilities will gradually increase. Sensory systems

will become more sophisticated and less expensive. The cost

of computing hardware is dropping rapidly and steadily with

no sign of bottoming out. Software costs are likely to be

the major impediment to robot development for the foreseeable future, but even these are slowly yielding to the techniques of structured programming and high level languages.

Eventually, extremely fast accurate, dexterous robots will

be programmed using design graphics data bases which

describe the shape of the parts to be made and the configuration of the assemblies to be constructed. Eventually,

robots will be able to respond to a wide variety of sensory

cues, to learn by experience and to acquire skills by self

optimization. Such skills can then be transferred to other

robots so that learning can be propagated rapidly throughout

the robot labor force.

During the 1990’s robots will probably enter the construc–

tion trades. Under the tutelage of a human master-
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers . 79

craftsman, apprentice robots will carry building materials,

lift and position wall and floor panels, cut boards to size,

and lay brick, block, and eventually stone. In the next

century, labor intensive building techniques (using robot

labor) may once again become practical. Homes, streets,

bridges, gardens and fountains may be constructed of sculpt–

ed stone, quarried, cut, and assembled by robots. Eventually, robots will mine the seabed, and farm the surfaces of

the oceans for food and fuel. And, of course, robots will

play a major role in outer space, -- in the construction of

large space structures, in space manufacturing, and in

planetary exploration.

Sometime, perhaps around the turn of the century, robot

technology will develop to the degree necessary to produce

the totally automated factory. In such factories robots

will perform most, if not all, of the operations that now

require human skills. There will be totally automatic inventory and tool management automatic machining) assembly,

finishing, and inspection systems. Automatic factories will

even be able to reproduce themselves. That is, automatic

factories will make the components for other automatic factories.

Once this occurs, productivity improvements will propagate

from generation to generation. Each generation of machines

will produce machines less expensive and more sophisticated

than themselves. This will bring about an exponential decline in the cost of robots and automatic factories which

may equal the cost/performance record of the computer indus–

try. For the past 30 years computing costs have spiraled

downward by 20% per year. This, at least in part, is due to

the fact that computers are used to design, construct, and

test other computers. Once automatic factories begin to

manufacture the components for automatic factories) the cost

of manufacturing equipment will also fall exponentially.

This, obviously, will reduce the cost of goods produced in

the automatic factories. Eventually, products produced in

automatic factories may cost only slightly more than the raw

materials and energy from which they are made.

The long range potential of totally automated manufacturing

is literally beyond our capacity to predict. It may change

every aspect of industrial society. Automatic factories

that can operate without human labor, and reproduce themselves, could lead to an entirely new era in the history of

civilization.

Now, in the light of the unprecedented economic potential of

robots, I suppose I should comment on why the implementation

of this technology is proceeding so slowly.
80 . Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

First, at least in the U. S. , funding for robotics R&D has

been very mod est. Every indication is that in the future,

support will grow, but not dramatically. Certainly, there

is nothing to suggest that a crash development program on

the scale of the Manhattan Project or the Apollo Moan Program is imminent. Certainly, there are no plans for the

federal government to launch such an effort and private investment funds are not likely to be committed on a massive

scale because of the long time to pay back, Robotics is

still a long term research topic. We are a long, long way

from a sophisticated sensory interactive, intelligent, highly skilled, dexterous, economically feasible, and commercially manufacturable robot. Research in this area is long

term, time consuming) and risky. Also, there is no certainty that inventions can be kept proprietary. There is therefore, no guarantee that the firms which make the investments

can capture enough of the benefits to make the risk

worthwhile.

Secondly, even after the research and development problems

are solved, several decades and many hundreds of billions of

dollars will be required to convert the present industrial

base to robot technology. This enormous investment will

severely tax available sources of capital. The transformation of the entire industrial plant of a country simply cannot be achieved except over an extended time period.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly) many voters question

the desirability of rapid, massive deployment of robot tech–

nology. Despite the obvious benefits from productivity improvement, there would be serious social and economic adjustments necessary as a result of such a rapid productivity

growth. Productivity improvement by its very nature reduces

the amount of human labor needed to produce a given product.

Thus, an obvious, but I believe incorrect conclusion is that

a rapid increase in productivity would lead to unemployment.

There is a wide spread perception that robots pose a threat

to jobs. The fear is that if robots were introduced at the

rate that is technologically possible, unemployment would

become a serious problem.

However, widespread unemployment is not the inevitable

result of rapid productivity growth. There is not a fixed

amount of work! More work can always be created. All that

is needed is a way to meet the payroll. Markets are not saturated. The purchasing power of consumers can always be

increased at the same rate that more products flow out of

the robot factories. At present, there is plenty of demand.

The mere fact of inflation is prima facie evidence that consumer demand exceeds the ability of present production techniques and facilities to supply goods and services at constant prices. Work is easy to create. So is demand. What
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers . 81

is hard to produce is goods and services that can be SO 1 d

for a profit, at, (or below) the current market price.

Nevertheless, the average citizen is unconvinced that advanced automation would necessarily put increased spending

power into his or her pocketbook, The question is -- If the

robots have most of the jobs, how will average people get

their income? In order for most people to be convinced that

robots are going to bring more benefits than problems it

will be necessary to demonstrate that a variety of alternative income producing occupations will be created to fill

the void left by those jobs which are taken over by robots.

Fortunately, this is not difficult to do.

Perhaps, the most obvious source of new jobs is in the industries which must be created in order to convert to a

robot based economy. Certainly if robots are to be manufactured in large enough quantities to make a significant impact on the existing industrial system, entirely new robot

manufacturing, sales, and service industries will emerge and

millions of exciting new jobs will be created. A typical

industrial robot costs from $30,000 to $80,000 and sometimes

more by the time it is installed and operating. This means

that every robot installed creates from 2 to 4 person-years

of work somewhere in the economy. The robot market is

presently growing at about 35% per year, which means it dou–

bles about every 3 years. As long as this growth rate continues, robot production will add jobs to the economy about

as fast as robot installation takes them away.

It will be many years, perhaps many decades, before robots

can design, manufacture market, install, program, and

repair themselves with little or no human intervention. In

the meantime, the manufacture and servicing of robots will

produce an enormous demand for mechanical engineers, techni–

cians, computer programmers electronic designers robot installation and repair persons. New robot companies will require secretaries, sales persons, accountants, and business

managers. It seems likely that the robot industry will

eventually employ at least as many people as the computer

and automobile industries do today.

Converting the world’s existing industrial plants from manual to robot labor will require many decades and will cost as

much as the total existing stock of industrial wealth. This

is a Herculean task which will provide employment to mil–

lions of workers for several generations. For a country

like the United States which has a strong technological

base, the world market in robots could easily create twice

as many jobs in robot production as were lost to robot labor. Needless to say, the export of robot systems (as well

as products made by them) could have a strong positive
82 ● Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

effect on the balance of trade and the strength of the dollar on the international market.

In general} industries that use the most efficient produc–

tion techniques grow and prosper, and hire more workers.

Markets for their products expand and they diversify into

new product lines. Workers displaced by automation are sim–

ply transferred into new growth areas or retrained for different occupations. It is in the industries that fall

behind in productivity that job layoffs are prevalent.

Inefficient industries lose market-share to competitors,

shrink, and eventually die. Thus, the biggest threat to

jobs is not in industries that adopt the latest robot technology, but in those which do not.

For example, there are almost one-half million jobless workers today in the American automobile industry. This is not

because of a couple thousand robots. It is because of the

energy crisis and because of foreign competition. U. S.

auto workers are suffering unemployment more because of

robots in Japan than because of robots in Detroit. If America continues the present low rate of productivity growth,

we cannot help but have even greater unemployment. Foreign

trading partners are modernizing at a rapid rate. If we do

not innovate, our products cannot compete, and our workers

will find their jobs being taken away by foreign competition.

Improving productivity is not easy. It requires research,

development) education) capital investment, and incentives

to do better. The new technology of advanced automation is

not a quick fix. It is a long range solution. Robots have

much promise but a long way to go. We are only beginning to

understand some of the technical problems. We are many

years, perhaps several decades from making truly intelligent, highly skilled robots. But technical solutions will

come. It is only a matter of time, money, and intellectual

resources. The real question is whether we can evolve a society in which robots will complement, not compete with, humans for their livelihood. If this problem can be solved,

then the prospects for the future may be very bright indeed.

Robots and automatic factories have the potential to increase productivity virtually without limit. This potential, if brought to reality, could create a material abundance and standard of living which far exceeds the horizon

of today’s expectations. Over the next two centuries the

technology of robotics and advanced automation could make

everyone rich. Robots someday could provide the economic

foundation for an “everypersons’ aristocracy. “ However, this

will require that we find a way to make them work for us,

and not in competition with us. To protect the human

worker’s livelihood in the coming decades there are several
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers ● 83

steps which can and should be taken.

First, we must provide retraining for workers displaced by

robots for new and better occupations.

Second, (after a decade or so when robots begin to make a

significant impact on productivity) we can decrease the

workweek. It is nowhere written in stone that humans must

work 40 hours per week. As robots take over more and more

work, humans can improve their work environment and de–

crease their work periods to 30, 20, or even 10 hours per

week. Education and leisure activities can be increased

virtually without limit. Eventually all “work” could be

voluntary.

However, in order to achieve this we will need to explore a

wide variety of mechanisms for broadening our ownership of

robots and automatic factories. Employee stock ownership

plans, individual robot-owner entrepreneurs, and even semipublic mutual fund ownership plans might be developed in the

future. If everyone could own the equivalent of one or two

robots, everyone would be financially independent, regardless of whether they were employed or not.

Finally, in the next few years and decades, we must recognize that it is premature to worry about insufficient work

to go around. There is virtually an unlimited amount of

work that needs to be done in eliminating poverty, hunger,

and disease, not only in America, but throughout the world.

We need to develop renewable energy resources> clean up the

environment rebuild our cities, exploit the oceans, explore

the planets, and colonize outer space. The new age of

robotics will open many new possibilities. What we humans

can do in the future is limited only by our imagination to

see the opportunities and our courage to act out our beliefs .
84 . Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

 CALIBRATION ROBOT

TO COMPUTER

Figure 1. Remote, in situ robot trajectory calibration system. . — Each of the two

cameras can measure the x and y position of light–emitting-diodes (LEDs) .

Initially, a calibration cube with a set of LEDs at known points is used

to compute the positions and viewing angles of the two cameras. Then

the two cameras can track a LED on the robot so as to determine the

3-dimensional position accuracy of the robot over its working volume.
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers ● 85

Explanation of Figure 2.

The command and control structure for successful organizations of great complexity is invariably hierarchical,

wherein goals, or tasks, selected at the highest level are

decomposed into sequences of subtasks which are passed to

one or more operational units at the next lower level in the

hierarchy. Each of these lower level units decomposes its

input command in the context of feedback information ob–

tained from other units at the same or lower levels, or from

the external environment, and issues sequences of subsubtasks to a set of subordinates at the next lower level.

This same procedure is repeated at each successive hierarchical level until at the bottom of the hierarchy there is

generated a set of sequences of primitive actions which

drive individual actuators “such as motors, servo valves, hydraulic pistons, or individual muscles. This basic scheme

can be seen in the organizational hierarchy on the left of

Figure 2.

A single chain of command through the organizational hierarchy on the left is shown as the computational hierarchy in

the center of Figure 2. This computational hierarchy consists of three parallel hierarchies: a task decomposition

hierarchy, a sensory processing hierarchy, and a world model

hierarchy. The sensory processing hierarchy consists of a

series of computational units, each of which extract the

particular features and information patterns needed by the

task decomposition unit at that level. Feedback from the

sensory processing hierarchy enters each level of the task

decomposition hierarchy. This feedback information comes

from the same or lower levels of the hierarchy or from the

external environment. It is used by the modules in the task

decomposition hierarchy to sequence their outputs and to

modify their decomposition function so as to accomplish the

higher level goal in spite of perturbations and unexpected

events in the environment.

The world model hierarchy consists of a set of knowledge

bases that generate expectations against which the sensory

processing modules can compare the observed sensory data

stream. Expectations are based on stored information which

is accessed by the task being executed at any particular

time, The sensory processing units can use this information

to select the particular processing algorithms that are appropriate to the expected sensory data and can inform the

task decomposition units of whatever differences, or errors,

exist between the observed and expected data. The task

decomposition unit can then respond, either by altering the

action so as to bring the observed sensory data into

correspondence with the expectation) or by altering the input to the world model so as to bring the expectation into
86 ● Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

correspondence with the observation.

Each computational unit in the task decomposition, sensory

processing, and world modeling hierarchies can be represented as a finite–state machine. At each time increment, each

unit reads its input and based on its present internal state

computes an output with a very short time delay.

If the output of each unit in the task decomposition hierarchy is described as a vector, and plotted versus time in a

vector space, a behavioral hierarchy such as is shown on the

right side of Figure 2 results. In this illustration a high

level goal, or task, (BUILD SUBASSEMBLY ABCD) is input to

the highest level in a robot control hierarchy. The H5 task

decomposition unit breaks this task down into a series of

subtasks, of which (ASSEMBLE AB) is the first. This “complex” subtask command is then sent to the H4 task decomposition unit. H4 decomposes this “complex” subtask into a sequence of “simple” subtasks (FETCH A), (FETCH B), (MATE B to

A), FASTEN B to A). The H3 unit, subsequently decomposes

each of the “simple” subtasks into a string of “elemental

moves” of the form (REACH TO A), (GRASP), (MOVE to X),

(REALEASE), etc. The H2 decomposition unit then computes a

string of trajectory segments in a coordinate system fixed

in the work space, or in the robot hand, or in the work

piece itself. These trajectory segments may include acceleration, velocity, and deceleration profiles for the

robot motion. In H1, each of these trajectory segments are

transformed into joint angle movements and the joint actuators are servoed to execute the commanded motions.

At each level, the G units select the appropriate feedback

information needed by the H modules in the task decomposition hierarchy. The M units generate predictions> or expected values, of the sensory data based on the stored

knowledge about the environment in the context of the task

being executed.
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers . 87

I I

II I I I I

I

t
88 . Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

Explanation of Figure 3.

The computing architecture shown in Figure 3 is intended as

a generic system that can be applied to a wide variety of

automatic manufacturing facilities and can be extended to

much larger applications. The basic structure is hierarchical, with the computational load distributed evenly over the

various computational units at the various different levels

of the hierarchy. At the lowest level in this hierarchy are

the individual robots, N/C machining centers, smart sensors,

robot carts, conveyors } and automatic storage systems, each

of which may have its own internal hierarchical control system. These individual machines are organized into work stations under the control of a work station control unit.

Several work station control units are organized under, and

receive input commands from a cell control unit. Several

cell control units may be organized under and receive input

commands from a shop control unit, etc. This hierarchical

structure can be extended to as many levels with as many

modules per level as are necessary, depending on the complexity of the factory.

On the right side of Figure 3 is shown a data base which

contains the part programs for the machine tools, the part

handling programs for the robots} the materials requirements, dimensions, and tolerances derived from the part

design data base, and the algorithms and process plans required for routing, scheduling) tooling, and fixturing.

This data is generated by a Computer-Aided-Design (CAD) system and a Computer-Aided-Process-Planning (CAPP) system.

This data base is hierarchically structured so that the information required at the different hierarchical levels is

readily available when needed.

On the left is a second data base which contains the current

status of the factory, Each part in process in the factory

has a file in this data base which contains information as

to what is the position and orientation of that part, its

stage of completion} the batch of parts that it is with, and

quality control information. This data base is also

hierarchically structured. At the lowest level, the position of each part is referenced to a particular tray or

table top. At the next higher level, the work station, the

position of each part refers to which tray the part is in.

At the cell level, position refers to which work station the

part is in. The feedback processors on the left scan each

level of the data base and extract the information of interest to the next higher level. A management information

system makes it possible to query this data base at any level and determine the status of any part or job in the shop.

It can also set or alter priorities on various Jobs.
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers ● 89

I

J I

1

I

90-240 0 - 82 - 7
90 ● Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY

RESEARCH PROGRAM IN INDUSTRIAL ECONOMICS

Working Paper No. 108A

ROBOTICS, PROGRAMMABLE AUTOMATION AND IMPROVING COMPETITIVENESS*

Bela Gold**

CONTENTS

I. POLICY ANALYSIS FOUNDATIONS

A. Robotics and Programmable Automation in Manufacturing

1. Programmable Automation

2. On the Role of Robotics Within Programmable Automation

B. Robotics, Manufacturing Productivity and Costs

1. On the Concept and Measurement of Productivity

2. Exploring Productivity and Cost Effects of Robotics

and Programmable Automation

C. Robotics, Manufacturing Technology and International

Competitiveness

1. Some Basic Perspectives on the Determinants of

International Competitiveness

2. Potential Contributions of Robotics and Programmable

Automation to Improving International Competitiveness

II. SOME BASIC POLICY ISSUES AND ALTERNATIVES

A. Basic Issues

B. Some

1.

2.

3.

4 .

Policy Needs and Alternatives

On the Adequacy of Development Rates

On the Adequacy of Diffusion Rates

Effects of Altering Development and Diffusion Rates

Other Incentives and Deterrents

Page

1

1

1

5

6

6

10

14

14

17

18

18

19

19

23

25

26

*

**

Prepared for the Robotics Workshop of the Congressional Office of Technology

Assessment held in Washington, D. C. on JUlY 31, 1981.

William E. Umstattd Professor of Industrial Economics and Director of the

Research Program in Industrial Economics, Case Western Reserve University,

Cleveland, Ohio.
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers . 91

ROBOTICS, PROGRAMMABLE AUTOMATION AND INCREASING COMPETITIVENESS*

Bela Gold**

More than 25 years of empirical research on the productivity, cost and

other effects of major technological innovations in a wide array of industries

in the U.S. and abroad have led me to draw two conclusions:

First:

Second:

Hence, sound

that the actual economic effects of even major technological

advances have almost invariably fallen far short of their expected effects; and

that such exaggerated expectations have been due to their overconcentration on only a limited sector of the complex of

interactions which determine actual results.

analysis of the prospective effects of increasing applications of

robotics in domestic industries on their cost effectiveness and international

competitiveness requires avoidance of such over-simplifications.

Accordingly, Part I of this paper will present some foundations for policy

analysis, including: the place of robotics within current and prospective advances in manufacturing technology; the effects of increasing robot utilization

on productivity and costs; and the resulting effects on international competitiveness. Part II will then consider the problems and policy implications of

seeking: to accelerate the development of robotics and related advances in

manufacturing technology; to accelerate the diffusion of such advances within

domestic manufacturing industries; and to mitigate any potentially burdensome

social and economic effects of such developments.

I POLICY ANALYSIS FOUNDATIONS

A. Robotics and Programmable Automation in Manufacturing

1. Programmable Automation

Gains in the physical efficiency of manufacturing operations may be derived

* Prepared for the Robotics Workshop of the Congressional Office of Technology

Assessment held on July 31, 1981.

** William E. Umstattd professor of Industrial Economics and Director of the

Research Program in Industrial Economics, Case Western Reserve University,

Cleveland, Ohio.
I

92 . Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

2

from a variety of developments. The most important among these include: advances in technology; increases in the scale of production; improvements in the

output and quality capabilities of equipment; adjustments in labor contributions;

and continuing increments in the effectiveness of production planning and control.

Because the effectiveness of such operations depends on integrating all these

factors, changes in any one are likely to interact with others. Hence, evaluation of the effects of any innovation requires consideration of all resulting

readjustments in the system.

After basic advances in technology, the most important and continuous source

of gains in the physical efficiency of production operations in the past has

probably been increases in the specialization of facilities and equipment. The

degree of specialization which was found most rewarding was determined by the

variety and volume of output which needed to be processed by the given equipment.

Thus, increases in the standardization of products and in the quantity required

encouraged the introduction of progressively more narrowly specialized production

systems. Eventually, the manufacture of completely uniform products in very large

quantities led to the construction of interlocking arrays of highly specialized

machines capable of producing enormous quantities with very great physical

efficiency. Such “dedicated systems”, however, permit only minor adjustments

in product designs or processing methods. As a result, they are not applicable

to the overwhelming proportion of manufacturing activities which involve the

production of wider arrays of products in smaller quantities. In addition, the

heavy investment required by such dedicated systems, combined with their very

limited flexibility, also encourages their users to resist changes in products

and improvements in production methods in an effort to use their existing equipment as long as possible.

Of course, engineering design permits a wide range in the extent to which

specialization is built into production machinery. Thus, “general purpose”

equipment may be designed to accommodate a wide array of tools and processing

functions in return for limiting its rate of output as well as other capabilities

in respect to any particular task. Such equipment’s output is also heavily

dependent on the concomitant specialized contributions of operators and other

service personnel. And intermediate degrees of equipment specialization have

offered progressively larger trade-offs of decreases in the range of functions

capable of being performed,as well as decreases in reliance on the specialized

contributions of operators and other external inputs,in return for increases in

the level of output, quality and effectiveness of designated production tasks.
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers ● 93

3

AS a result of intensifying market pressures, there have been sharply

increased efforts in recent years to improve the cost competitiveness of manufacturing operations devoted to a limited variety of products required in

volumes ranging from relatively small to moderate. Such needs are dominant in

most small and intermediate manufacturing plants as well as even in large plants

manufacturing capital goods. By far the most important advance in such capabilities has come from the development of computerization and related communication

and instrumentation capabilities. These permit the utilization of replaceable

programmed instructions in combination with programmable controls to enable

given equipment to turn out varying amounts of a succession of different parts

with little or no operator requirements.

In order to help clarify the broad potentials of the resulting revolution

in manufacturing technology which will be unfolding with accelerating rapidity

over the next decade, it may be useful to illustrate the interconnected changes

being generated as a result. Increasingly, the process will begin with computeraided design (CAD), with engineers developing new designs on the screen of a

terminal by specifying certain points on the screen and tapping instructions

concerning the desired shapes and dimensions of the configurations to be drawn

around them. The key point to understand is that in the course of projecting

the design shown on the screen the computer is storing a detailed mathematical

model of all of its features. It then becomes possible to use this information,

or data base, for an expanding array of purposes. For example, the resulting

definition of the dimensions and configurations of the designed part may be used

in computer programs to generate such manufacturing requirements as:

1. a schedule of the sequence of machines to be used in producing the part;

2. specific operating instructions for each machine as well as identification

of the tools required to perform such operations;

3. dimensional criteria for testing conformance of the finished part with

design requirements;

4. production schedules specifying individual machine assignments to accord

with estimated machining time required for each part and with previously

scheduled machine loadings as well as delivery dates;

5. estimates of the unit cost of each operation, including the wages of the

operator;

6. estimates of total unit costs of producing specified products may be used

to determine bids for contracts; and
94 ● Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

4

7. combining the design data with materials specifications and planned

output, along with expected scrap rates and waste, to generate procurement requirements.

As indicated in Figure 1, various other kinds of performance evaluation and

control information may also be generated.

By tracing only one direction of such information flows, however, even the

preceding impressive array of applications understates the potential benefits of

such systems. In fact, all such flows move in both directions. Engineers can

use them to explore the relative costs of alternative designs: Manufacturing

specialists can evaluate alternative processing sequences and machining instructions. Inventory adjustments can be adapted to accord with production and

distribution variations. Production requirements and manpower availabilities

can be adapted to one another.

‘Production Machining Parts -

Scheduling - Performance . Testing

& Control . 

Process Assembly

Planning. .

Procurement

Inventories

Work-in- Finished

1

Assignments Accounting

Process .

Figure .1: Potential Applications of Design Data Bases

Programs have already been developed to apply each of the possibilities

cited above. But few plants are actually utilizing many of them on a continuing

rather than an experimental basis. Despite the clarity of the logic involved,

the development of a functioning system requires confronting very large masses

of details and many alternative possibilities at most stages of defining sequential
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers ● 95

5

decisions. There can be little doubt, however, that the future will

creasing realization of such potentials with profound effects on the

for remaining competitive. (1)

2. On the Role of Robotics Within Programmable Automation

see inrequirements

Most robots are used in manufacturing as mechanical replacements for formerly

manual operations. Major categories of such assignments include “pick and place”,

“manipulate” and “process”. Essentially, the first involves transferring individual parts from one location to another, the second usually involves bringing

parts together, as in assembly, and the third involves carrying out actual

operations, such as welding or painting or testing. The complexity of these

efforts may be enhanced if the robot is required to select among several objects

through identifying key characteristics, or if it has to sense proximity to its

target location, or if it has to adapt its manipulative or processing efforts

to variable conditions. Efforts to extend the range of applications of robots

have accordingly involved shifting increasingly from mechanically guided and

controlled models to those which are programmable, equipped with feedback

controls, capable of some degree of “learning” and possessed of a wider array

and more sensitive manipulative potentials. Thus, in the perspective of laborreplacement objectives, developmental programs have sought to supplement the

greater strength, speed, fatigue resistance and imperviousness to boredom of

robots with increasing such capabilities as visual discrimination, precision

of location and movement, and sensitivity to touch, pressure and torque.

Robots have commonly taken the form of separate pieces of equipment which

are readily movable from one location to another. This obviously yields advantages of mobility comparable to the relocation of operators to adjust to

changes in production needs. But the performance of what have come to be

considered as “robot-like” functions need not be restricted to such separate

mobile units. Indeed, the development of flexible manufacturing systems (FMS),

or programmable automation systems, may well involve new combinations of

“built-in” robot-like functions. In the case of machining centers, for example,

instead of using a separate robot to select needed tools from a rack and then

(1) For further discussion, see B. Gold, An Improved Model for Managerial Evaluation and Utilization of Computer-Aided Manufacturing: A Report to the

National Research Council Committee on Computer-Aided Manufacturing,

Washington, D. C., March 1981.
96 ● Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

6

attach and remove them in proper sequence, this capability is built into the

equipment. Various kinds of machines also have built-in capabilities for

grasping, loading, unloading and passing parts along. And still others include

devices for testing the conformance of finished parts with dimensional requirements.

The point being emphasized is that continuing development of programmable

automation systems may well involve changes in the physical forms as well as in

the functional capabilities of robot-like contributions to production. Physically

separate units may be increasingly supplemented by replaceable attached units

to service the changing requirements of particular machines, as well as by builtin robot-like capabilities in cases where the need for such services is expected

to be continuous and to remain within a range which can be met effectively --

thus, many labor-replacing robots may themselves be replaced. Indeed, the very

development of improved capabilities in robots may stimulate the redesign of

later equipment to incorporate some of these additional functions. Hence, while

it may remain feasible to assess the prospective effects of many individual

robot applications, an increasing number of cases may require a broader evaluative context in order to ensure consideration of their interactions with other

inputs as well as of other factors affecting performance in tightly integrated

production operations.

B. ROBOTICS, MANUFACTURING PRODUCTIVITY AND COSTS

1. On the Concept and Measurement of Productivity

Despite widespread concern about lagging productivity in many U.S. industries,

analyses of the problem and proposed improvement policies are still seriously

handicapped in several ways. The most serious of these involves continuing reliance on inadequate concepts and misleading measures of productivity, such as

“output per man-hour” or “value added per man-hour” or the supposedly sophisticated

“total factor productivity” -- all of which can be shown to be of dubious value,

when not actually misleading, for managerial purposes.

For example, “output per man-hour” has nothing to do with the effectiveness

of production as a whole, or even with the effectiveness of labor contributions

to output. By comparing the combined product of all inputs with the sheer volume

of paid hours by one input, it patently ignores changes in the volume and contributions of all other inputs. “Value added per man-hour” repeats this error of

attributing changes in output to only one of the inputs, but also encourages
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers ● 97

7

interpreting mere increases in wage rates, because they enter into value added,

as evidences of increased “labor productivity”. The grandly labelled “total

factor productivity”, on the other hand, is so overly aggregative as to make

interpretations of resulting changes both difficult and highly vulnerable.

Specifically, how is one to interpret changes in its ratio of “product value

at fixed product prices” to “total costs at fixed factor prices”? Do they represent changes in deflated profit margins, or changes in the ratio of product

price to factor price indexes, or changes in product-mix, or changes in a variety

of other relevant factors including some aspects of productivity?

In addition to such erroneous concepts and measures, prevailing discussions

of productivity problems and remedial policies are also undermined by highly

vulnerable deductions about the causes of apparent changes in productivity levels

and by dubious claims about the effects of productivity adjustments on costs

and profitability. As a matter of fact, findings that output per man-hour, or

value added per man-hour, or total factor productivity had increased or decreased

by 5 per cent last year would reveal nothing to management about: what had caused

this change; or how rewarding or burdensome it was; or what might be done to

improve future performance.

In order to serve the practical requirements of management, a productivity

measurement and analysis system must encompass all of the inputs whose interacting contributions determine the level of output and the effectiveness of

production operations. For this purpose, one approach which has been applied

in a wide array of industries utilizes the concept of a “network of productivity

relationships”. As shown in Figure 2, it encompasses the six components which

management can manipulate in seeking to improve production efficiency: three

representing the input requirements per unit of output of materials, labor and

(2) capital goods; and three more representing the proportions in which these

are combined with one another. The latter obviously need to be included because

management could, for example, substitute more highly processed inputs in place

(2) Fixed investment is related to capacity rather than to output, however, because

that is what capital goods provide. Actual output may then vary with demand,

entailing varying levels of idleness of such equipment. In measuring the proportions in which the major inputs are combined with one another, however,

labor and materials inputs are compared not with total fixed investment but

with actively-utilized fixed investment, i.e., with fixed investment adjusted

for the ratio of output to capacity.
98 ● Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

8

of using some of its own labor or equipment, or it could substitute more equip- .

ment to replace labor. The inter-connectedness of these six elements emphasizes

that a change may be initiated in any one, but that its effects must then be

traced around the entire network to ensure that all adaptive adjustments have

been made which are necessary to reintegrate the system. This also means

that an observed change in one of the links need not have been engendered in

that link, hut rather have resulted as an adjustment to a change induced elsewhere in

For

ratio of

this system.

nOutput

Mon-hours

Fixed investment X output/capacity

Fig. 2 The network of productivity relationships among direct input factors [9].

example, mechanizing some manual operations would first affect the

actively-utilized fixed investment to man-hours. This would tend to

reduce man-hours per unit of output, while the attendant increase in fixed investment might alter its ratio to capacity. And if the innovation reduced

scrap rates, it would also decrease the materials input volume per unit of

output.

Because management’s primary motivation in altering productivity relationships is usually to improve its cost competitiveness, it is necessary to evaluate

past or prospective changes in the productivity network by tracing resulting

effects on the cost structure. This involves, first, tracing the interaction of

changes in each unit input requirement with its factor price to calculate resulting changes in its unit cost. For example, a 10 per cent increase in output

per man-hour would yield only a 5 per cent reduction in unit wage cost, if it

were accompanied by a 5 per cent increase in hourly wage rates. In turn, the

effects of resulting changes in various unit costs on total unit costs depend,

of course, on their respective proportions of total costs, as shown in Fig. 3.
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers ● 99

9

Thus , the preceding example of a five per cent reduction in unit wage costs

would tend to reduce total unit costs by only one per cent if wages accounted

for only 20% of total unit costs. And total unit costs need not have declined

at all if the

engendered by

processed and

assumed ten per cent increase in output

increased investment in machinery,or by

hence more expensive material inputs.

per man-hour had been

purchasing more highly

Wage

w

FIG. 3 Productivity network, cost structure and managerial control ratios.

Management tends to be even more concerned about the effects of prospective

innovations on profitability than on costs. Hence, account must be taken of the

fact that such effects involve not only the direct impact of changes ‘on total

unit costs, but also the indirect effects of any changes in product quality or

product-mix on product prices and capacity utilization rates. In addition,

profitability would also be affected by any changes in the proportion of total

investment allocated to fixed investment and in the productivity of fixed investment. But this discussion will not pursue such further ramifications. It may be
100 . Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

10

of interest to add, however, that the above analytical framework can be disaggregate from plant level results to results within individual product lines

or individual cost centers, and it can also be decomposed to trace the effects

of changes among various components of material, labor or capital goods inputs. (3)

2. Exploring Productivity and Cost Effects of Robotics and Programmable

Automation

The preceding framework may now be used to trace the prospective effects

of increased applications of robots and of broader systems of programmable

automation.

Within the network of productivity relationships, the immediate impacts

of introducing additional robots would tend to center around increases in fixed

investment and reductions in labor requirements per unit of output. In cases

where the utilization of machine capacity had been restricted by the sustainable

speed of labor efforts, output capabilities might be increased. And in some

processing operations, robots might reduce the reject rate or even raise the

average quality of output. Of course, part of the reduction in direct man-hour

requirements would tend to be offset by the need for providing additional skilled

maintenance and set-up personnel as well as programming capabilities when required.

These indirect manpower requirements emphasize the need to consider the prospective effects of individual robot applications separately from the effects

of robotization programs, especially when more complex programmable robots are

involved. Simple mechanical robots which are introduced as direct replacements

for labor without altering other component of the production process offer no

special evaluation problems. But the requirements of more complex programmable

robots for various types of skilled servicing technicians and even engineers

involves the assumption of substantial specialized and relatively fixed minimum

manpower commitments. Hence, the effectiveness with which these are utilized

depends on the number and variety of robots to be employed. Indeed, such manpower requirements might offset most or all of the expected benefits of reductions

in operator man-hours if the number of robots acquired were too small to utilize

(3) For more detailed discussion of this analytical approach and for some empirical

findings resulting from its applications, see B. Gold, Productivity, Technology

and Capital: Economic Analysis, Managerial Strategies and Government Policies

(Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath-- Lexing on Press, 1979).
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers ● 101

11

such additional expertise. Because of such threshold requirements, the evaluation of proposals for the acquisition of more complex robots should cover the

planned program to be carried out over several years rather than charging the

whole of such basic service manpower requirements against the first robots

acquired.

As was indicated earlier, the effects of increasing the use of robots on

unit manpower costs depends on resulting changes in the volume of direct and

indirect manpower per unit of output and in their respective rates of payment.

In the case of relative simple robots which replace labor and involve quite

minimal demands on existing maintenance and set-up personnel, the result tends

to be a sharp reduction in the unit wage cost of the particular operation which

was affected. In the case of adoptions of more complex robots, such reductions

in direct unit wage costs would tend to be at least partly offset by increases

in the number of needed maintenance and other specialists as well as by their

higher average earnings. The net effects on total unit manpower costs would

depend then on the output levels over which these larger indirect costs were

distributed. Thus, because of the decreased flexibility in employment levels

for such service personnel, attendant changes in output levels may have a

significant effect on total unit manpower costs as well as on total unit capital

charges. But the introduction of robots is not likely to affect output levels

except, as was noted earlier, where operator limitations of effort, fatigue or

carefulness have resulted either in under-utilization of the related equipment

capacity, or in higher reject rates (thus involving higher unit material costs

as well) -- or where robots are subject to significant periods of unexpected

downtime for repairs or readjustments.

Expected changes, in the total unit costs of the operation directly affected

can then be readily calculated by weighting the estimated percentage change in

unit materials, labor and capital costs by their respective proportions of total

costs, as shown in Fig. 3. In the case of more complex robots, however, as

exemplified by processing and assembly robots, a broader evaluation framework

may be necessary if the effective functioning of such robots requires modifications

in prior operations in order to provide more precise or higher quality parts to

enter such processes. A broader evaluation framework may also be necessary if

such robotized operations significantly affect the productivity and costs of

subsequent stages of operations, or the quality of the final product in ways

affecting prospective demand or prices.
102 ● Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

12

In short, the increasing diffusion of robots is likely to make only a

modest, though still significant, contribution to improving the cost effectiveness

of most manufacturing firms. One of the basic factors limiting such potential

benefits is that direct wage costs seldom account for more than 15-25 per cent

of total costs and any savings through reducing direct man-hour requirements tend

to be partly offset by increases in capital charges and in indirect wage and

salary costs, and further offsets would be generated if wage rates are increased

to help gain acceptance of such innovations. An additional limitation on such

potential benefits ‘arises from the fact that only a narrow array of tasks can be

performed more economically by robots than by labor or by machines which include

the robotizable capabilities. Indeed, even some of the manual functions which

can be economically transferred to robots now may in time be transferred into

redesigned machines, as was noted earlier.

From the standpoint of longer term planning perspectives, consideration

should also be given to a plant’s cost proportions and to the prospective effects

of increasing the ratio of “fixed” to “variable” costs. Cost proportions differ

very widely, of course, among industries as well as among plants within industries.

The long term average proportion of total costs accounted for by actual wages in

U.S. manufacturing has been well under 20 per cent, ranging between less than 10

per cent in ore smelting, petroleum refining and other industries which represent

the first stage of processing natural resources to more than 40 per cent in industries involving the fabrication of complex machinery. (4) Thus, the prospective

effects of robotization on total unit costs through reductions in unit wage costs

would tend to be far greater at the latter extreme. Attention must be given not

only to the magnitude of cost proportions, however, but also to the extent to

which a given category of unit costs could be reduced through robots or other

innovations. Thus, any resulting increases in output per man-hour which are largely

or wholly offset by attendant increases in hourly wage rates would yield little or .

no cost advantage, however large the wage cost ratio -- especially if account is

(4) For a comparison of cost proportions in 20 manufacturing industries, see B. Gold,

Explorations in Managerial Economics: Productivity, Costs, Technology and

Growth (London: Macmillan, 1971; New York: Basic Books, 1971), p. 137.

Japanese translation - Tokyo: Chikura Shobo, 1977. Differences in cost proportions among plants in the same industry are attributable primarily to

differences in their “make VS. buy” ratios, in the modernity of their technologies

and facilities, in their scale of operations and in their product-mix. For

further discussion, see B. Gold, “changing Perspectives on Size, Scale and

Returns: An Interpretive Survey”, Journal of Economic Literature March 1981,

especially pp. 21 et.seq. —
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers . 103

13

also taken of the associated increase in capital charges. On the other hand,

sight must not be lost in such evaluations of the powerful leverage of reductions

in total unit costs on profit margins, for even a 5 per cent reduction in total

unit costs could increase profit margins by 33-50 per cent. Hence, the relative

magnitudes of wage cost proportions warrants careful consideration in choosing

targets among different sectors of operation for robotics applications whose

benefits are expected to center on wage savings.

Longer term planning for advancing manufacturing technology has also been

affected in many industries by the traditional concern about the burdens of increasing the ratio of total capital charges, which are considered “fixed”, to

labor costs which are considered “variable”-- meaning that the former are unaffected by reductions in output, while the latter decline with them. But” it iS

obvious that labor costs have become less “variable” because of trade union

resistances to reductions in employment and wage rates, and because of increasing

cost penalties for lay-offs through “social benefit” requirements. Increasing

attention has also been given in recent years to adjusting depreciation rates in

response to changing levels of capacity utilization, thus enhancing the

variability of total capital charges.

The possibility should also be considered that capital inputs are becoming

progressively more economical than labor inputs as compared with their respective

contributions to output. In part, this reflects the fact that continuing technological progress tends to enhance the production contributions of facilities and

equipment far more than those of labor. Moreover, although capital goods prices

and wage rates both rise during inflationary periods, the prices to be paid for

the former stop rising as soon as they are purchased, while wage rates continue

to rise even after workmen are hired,and might rise even more if “higher labor

productivity” can be claimed as a result of the additional equipment. Indeed, the

costs of using such capital goods may even decline steadily under some forms of

depreciation. In addition, most increases in capital facilities involve some,

and often substantial, replacements of labor inputs, thus helping to offset part

of the capital costs. Still another factor tending to increase the relative

economy of capital inputs is the seemingly irreversible trend towards increasing

payments to labor for non-working time, including:lay-offs; sickness; holidays;

vacations; and pensions. Altogether, these considerations suggest that, in addition

to altering past characterizations of capital and labor costs as “fixed” or

“variable” in response to output fluctuations, attention should be given to
104 ● Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

14

characterizing the long term tendencies of capital and labor costs -- with

indications that the latter may warrant classification as “rising” relative to

the former.

Evaluating the prospective effects of advances in computer-aided manufacturing,

or programmable automation also requires more complex considerations as well as still

broader coverage and even longer time perspectives. Briefly summarized, they are

likely to affect all unit input requirements as well as the factor proportions

encompassed by the “network of productivity relationships”, they tend to alter

longer term trends in capacity levels as well as in capacity utilization, and

their effects are likely to reach beyond production operations to modify managerial planning and control systems as well as the organizational structure of

firms.(’

)

c. ROBOTICS, MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY AND INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIVENESS

1. Some Basic Perspectives on the Determinants of International Competitiveness

The growing national concern with the declining international competitiveness

of a significant array of major U.S. industries has generated a stream of proposals for remedial action. Unfortunately , most of these are based on untested

assumptions about the general causes of such lagging competitiveness instead of

on penetrating analyses of the specific industries affected.

It is important to recognize that foreign competitive pressures no longer

concentrate only on older industries with mature technologies. On the contrary,

such pressures are intensifying over a wide spectrum of “high technology” industries as well. Examples of the latter include: semi-conductors, computers,

telecommunications, sophisticated robotics, aircraft and flexible manufacturing

systems. Hence, following the panic-induced proposals to abandon our older

industries, which are also major sources of employment and income, would merely

intensify problems of domestic welfare and military security. It is important,

of course, to foster the development of newly emerging industries because, although they are likely to make only modest contributions to employment, income

(5) For a brief summary of some of these effects, see B. Gold, “Revising Managa~~~~al

Evaluations of Computer-Aided Manufacturing Systems , proceedings of

fact West Conferencet Vol 1 (Deaborn~ ‘1: Society of Manufacturing Ensineers,

NOV. 1980). For a more detailed report, see B. Gold, An Improved Model for

Managerial Eval~tiOn and Utilization of Computer-Aided Manufacturing: A

Report to the National Research Council Committee on Computer-Aided Manufacturing

Washington, D. c. , March 19810
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers ● 105

15

and foreign trade during their first 5-10 years of development, some of them

may become powerful sectors of our economy in the future. But encouragement and

support for such embryonic industries must be supplemented by intensified efforts

to re-establish the competitiveness of older major industries through advancing

beyond their current technological frontiers,if the national welfare is to be

safeguarded in the short-run and intermediate-run as well. (6)

A related view whose vulnerability is inadequately recognized holds that the

international competitiveness of our basic manufacturing industries is bound to

decline relative to less developed countries because of our higher wage rates.

Of course, substantial wage rate differentials do exist and these are likely to

encourage continuing shifts in the location of some light manufacturing industries.

But such wage rate disadvantages are largely offset in many basic industries by

higher output per man-hour and higher product quality. In addition, the tendency

for wage rates to rise more rapidly in industrializing countries tends to further

reduce resulting differences in unit wage costs. It is also worth recalling here

that wages tend to account for less than 20 per cent in U.S. manufacturing as a

whole, thus limiting the effects of lower wage rates in wide sectors of industry.

Most important of all for the longer run is the fact that labor inputs are being

replaced increasingly in determining the productive efficiency of most manufacturing industries by capital inputs, which embody the technological contributions of advances in processing, mechanization, computerization, programmable

controls and robotics. Hence, advanced industrial nations are likely to retain

their competitive advantages in many basic manufacturing industries for many years

to come. Such advantages will be reinforced by the greater availability of

investment funds and the greater availability of the advanced engineers and highly

skilled labor needed to maintain, supervise and improve such sophisticated operations

-- especially those producing higher quality and more complex products.

At any rate, more sharply focussed diagnoses are obviously essential to the

development of effective remedial efforts, not only for the industries which have

already been hard hit by foreign competitors, but also to help the additional array

of domestic industries likely to face such increasing pressures during the next

five years. In this connection, it may be worth noting some of the findings

emerging from a study of the factors affecting the international competitiveness

(6) For further discussion, see B. Gold, “U.S. Technological Policy Needs: Some

Basic Misconceptions,” in H.H. Miller (cd.), Technology , International Economics

and Public Policy (Washington, D. C. : American Association for the Advancement

of Science, 1981).

90-240 0 - 82 - 8
106 ● Exploratory Workshop on the SocIal Impacts of Robotics

16

of a sample of domestic industry being conducted with the support of the National

cience Foundation.(’

) Contrary to widespread assumptions and beliefs, the major

causes of the decreasing international competitiveness of various domestic

industries differ widely among industries. Hence, generalized solutions are

likely to result in only mild palliative at best. Also, although decreasing

competitiveness in production efficiency is a major factor in a number of industries;

such shortcomings are powerfully reinforced, and sometimes even over-shadowed by:

a.

b.

c.

d.

Product designs which are less efficient, less attractive, less troublefree or less sensitive to changes in consumer preferences;

Higher unit wage costs resulting from wage rate increases which have outrun gains in output per man-hour;

Higher unit costs of raw materials, energy, capital goods, or investment

funds; and

Less aggressive marketing and less responsiveness to customer delivery

and servicing needs.

Third, even disadvantages in respective to production efficiency are due to

a variety of causes. Less advanced technological processes, older facilities

and more limited utilization of computer-aided manufacturing and robotics have

certainly been important handicaps. But it would be a mistake to under-estimate

the influence on strengthening the competitiveness of various foreign producers

of such factors as: more aggressive managerial demands for productivity improvement; larger technical staffs under greater pressure and more effectively motivated

to increase technological capabilities; and reliance on longer production runs of

a more limited product-mix to help keep capacity utilization rates high.

Fourth, another important contributor to the production efficiency of some

foreign producers has been their labor’s greater productive efforts, greater

willingness to accept and maximize utilization of technological advances and

improvements, and greater mobility among tasks. But blaming a large share of the

decreasing competitiveness of domestic industries on general declines in the capabilities and motivations of labor tends to be contradicted to some extent by the

high quality of output and the apparent cost effectiveness of some foreign-owned

plants in the United States. This does not mean that all trade unions have supported the introduction of technological advances, have co–operated in efforts to

raise productivity levels to those achieved by foreign competitors, and have limited

. .

(7) The author is Chief Investigator, The report is scheduled for late 1981.
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers . 107

17

demands for increases in wage rates to match increases in their

to production capabilities. But it does mean that some foreign

and some domestic managements as well -- have found it possible

contributions

managements --

to work with

domestic labor in ways which yield high quality products, high productivity and

competitive costs. Here again, therefore, the need is to dig beneath superficial

generalizations to come more closely to grips with the factors which are most

influential in various sectors of industry, and under different conditions.

2. Potential Contributions of Robotics and Programmable Automation to

Improving International Competitiveness

The potential contributions of robotics and programmable automation to

improving the competitiveness of domestic manufacturing industries must be

examined within the context of the preceding complex of influential factors.

Increasing the utilization of progressively improved robots would obviously

tend to have a positive effect on technological competitiveness. But the resulting gain is likely to be of only modest proportions in most plants and

industries unless such advances are integrated with simultaneous advances in ‘

other determinants of technological competitiveness. Roboticizing manual operations in old plants using old machinery to make old products has obviously

limited potentials. Nor are major advances likely to result from improving any

other single component of the interwoven fabric of changes underlying significant

progress in technological competitiveness. Robotics can undoubtedly make substantial contributions to such progress, but only as part of a comprehensive

program to improve technological competitiveness.

Such programs must encompass carefully co-ordinated plans seeking to improve

the capabilities and attractiveness of products, to adopt advanced technologies,

to embody them in modern equipment of a scale deemed close to optimal for the

level of output and product-mix to be provided, to provide for progressively adjusting input factor proportions and equipment utilization practices so as to

maximize production efficiency, and to ensure continuing efforts to improve

performance. It would be impractical, of course, to attempt to advance on all

of these fronts simultaneously. But it would also be frustrating and wasteful

to attempt to make major advances along any of these channels without considering

prospective interactions with, and possibly offsetting pressures from, these

other components.
108 ● Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

18

Moreover, recognition of the complexity of the elements involved in

achieving significant advances in technological competitiveness must be combined

with appropriate time perspectives both in setting improvement targets and in

planning progress towards them. In setting targets, it is important to base

them not on catching up with the current capabilities of competitors, but on

careful evaluations of prospective improvements in their capabilities over the

next 5 years, along with parallel evaluations of prospective changes in the availability and prices of all required inputs,as well as in the output levels, mix

and prices of products likely to be experienced in the market place. And in

planning progress, realistic assessments need to be made of the likely availability of capital, of the time needed to acquire needed facilities and equipment

and for management, engineers and labor to learn to use them effectively, as well

as of the constraints likely to affect the rate of adjustments in employment

levels and organizational rearrangements.

II SOME BASIC POLICY ISSUES

A. BASIC ISSUES

Although it has already been emphasized

AND ALTERNATIVES

that the declining international

competitiveness of an increasing array of domestic manufacturing industries is

attributable to a variety of factors, there can be no doubt that lagging technological competitiveness and related production efficiency is one of the leading

causes. Such lags are due to belated and inadequate adoption of successful

technological advances available from abroad, to inadequate modernization of

facilities and equipment, to inadequate improvements in production management and

controls, and to continued shortcomings in gaining labor co-operation for maximizing the cost and quality competitiveness of products.

Within this array, programmable automation is especially important not only

because it can contribute to each of the others, but, above all, because it represents an essentially general process of progressive advances in technological

capabilities and productive efficiency. Instead of offering the particular

localized benefits of any single improvement in process technology, or in the

capability of a new machine, programmable automation may be regarded as a form of

“contagious” technology which keeps pressing to surmount the boundaries of any

given application and thereby to “infect” adjacent sectors of operations and

controls. It may, of course, be applied beneficially to single operations, but

its major potentials derive from providing the means of achieving increasingly
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers . 109

19

optimal functioning of each production unit, increasingly effective integration

of all components of production, and increasingly effective co-ordination and

control of other non-production operations as well -- as was illustrated in

Figure 1.

Robots have been and will, of course, continue to be introduced simply as

direct replacements for individual workers performing manual tasks. But an increasing proportion of their applications in the future are likely to derive

from the continuing development and spreading of programmable automation systems,

which are likely to require comparably improving capabilities in their robot

components.

Accordingly, the key issues involved in increasing the contribution of programmable automation and robotics to strengthening the international competitiveness of domestic manufacturing industries would seem to center around:

1. the adequacy of the rate of development of the technological capabilities

of programmable automation systems and of robotics relative to the rate

of progress abroad;

2. the adequacy of the rate of diffusion of programmable automation systems

and of robotics relative to their capacity to improve productive efficiency

and cost competitiveness, and also relative to such diffusion rates among

foreign competitors;

3. the relative effects of slower and faster rates of development and diffusion of such systems and of robotics on the competitiveness of various

domestic industries as well as on their employment levels and capital

requirements; and

4. the identification of the nature, sources and relative importance of the

influential determinants of changes in the rate of development and diffusion of programmable automation systems and robotics.

The formulation of effective approaches to encouraging fuller realization

of the constructive potentials offered by programmable automation systems and

robotics would seem to require prior careful exploration of these issues.

B. SOME POLICY NEEDS AND ALTERNATIVES

1. On the Adequacy of Development Rates

Until now, most of the development efforts concerned with programmable automation and robots have been focussed on performing existing tasks more effectively

or more safely. Because of the already recognized needs of managements and the
110 ● Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

20

consequent easing of marketing problems, early robot applications were designed

to replace workers in dangerous or uncomfortable working environments, then in

tasks involving heavy physical demands, and only later and more gradually in

highly repetitive tasks. Most such past applications required few advances in

technology, primarily representing new forms of specialized machine designs. (8)

Although later applications have required somewhat more complex operating

and control capabilities, developmental efforts have continued to be dominated

by the objective of performing existing jobs faster or more accurately. And

this approach is likely to continue among robot manufacturers because of the inevitably narrow set of functions to be performed by anyone of their products and

the consequent need to satisfy the completely pre-defined parameters of the

component tasks to be performed. Research frontiers would accordingly concern

improving manipulative capabilities, increasing the precision of actions taken,

enhancing the reliability and durability of operations, and broadening the

functions of programmable controls through extending the range of human senses

which can be duplicated and through improving provisions for adaptive adjustments

and “learning”.

It is difficult to find persuasive data concerning relative progress in the

development of robot capabilities in different countries. Active efforts have

patently been under way for some years in Western Europe, Japan and the United

States as well as in Eastern Europe. And impressive products have been marketed

by producers from each of these areas. American manufacturers have been especially

complimentary about the reliability of Japanese robots and about certain capabilities of Swedish and Italian robots, while also praising a number of domestic

products. But the readiness of current and prospective American users of robots

to rattle off a long list of specific limitations which tend to narrow the range

of immediately rewarding applications much more sharply than is suggested by

general discussions indicates that increased research and development may open

the way to a major expansion of practical robot applications in domestic industries.

And resulting innovative advances might well engender the rapid growth of the

domestic robot manufacturing industry in addition to accelerating increases in

the productive efficiency of robot-using domestic industries.

This raises the question of whether any additional measures should be considered by the government to augment the limited but increasing efforts by private

(8) For an excellent review of robotics applications by a pioneer in their cleVelOpment, see J.F. Engelberger, Robotics in Practice (New York: AMACOM, 1980).
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers ● 111

21

industry and universities to improve the capabilities and cost effectiveness of

domestically produced robots. Some foreign governments have supported such

efforts through research and development grants to industry and to universities

also

and through encouraging prospective users, especially in defense industries.

Similar efforts have been made in this country, although probably on more

limited scale.

Turning to programmable automation, somewhat. similar early developmental

patterns may be noted. Initial applications tended to concentrate on developing

process controls for individual production units. But the fact that computer

manufacturers had a broader range of application potentials in view than robot

producers resulted in a rapidly expanding concern with co–ordinating progressively

wider sets of individual process controls and then integrating these into increasingly encompassing performance-monitoring and control systems. Although

international surveys have called attention to some foreign systems which seem

to be much more advanced than any in the United States , most of these seem still

to represent uncommon cases of pioneering or largely experimental applications. (9)

Developmental efforts are under way in a number of domestic firms, especially

those involved in aerospace programs, to extend applications of programmable

controls to a variety of production, planning and control functions. But most of

these have not yet reached the stage of reliable broad commercial applicability

and none at all have achieved effective integration over a wide array of such

functions. Moreover, both developmental efforts and applications have been of

distinctly meager proportions in firms basically devoted to non-defense production.

Hence the question arises in this connection, as it did in respect to robotics,

whether any additional measures should be considered to augment the increasing,

but still limited, efforts of private industry and of universities to accelerate

the development of increasingly comprehensive programmable automation system.

Finally, increasing attention might well be given to the possibility that the

development of programmable automation systems may engender an alternative approach

to the development of robotic functions and forms. Specifically, in place of the

past approach of roboticizing existing manual tasks, the designing of programmable

(9) For example, see Dennis Wisnosky, worldwide compUter–Ai.ded Manufacturing

Survey (Dayton, OH: Air Force Systems Command, December 1977) and also

J. Hatvany, K. Rathmill and H. Yoshikawa, Computer-Aided Manufacturing:

An International Comparison (Washington, D.C. : National Research Council

Committee on Computer-Aided Manufacturing, Sept. 1981.)
112 ● Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

22

automation system may result in generating altered definitions of the kinds of

functions to be considered for robotization, and may even integrate some of these

functions into other machine or equipment components of the system. It may be

relevant to mantion in this connection that progress in programmable automation

is often discussed within the context of efforts to develop “automatic factories".(lO)

Although such achievements still seem far off in respect to plants capable of

producing limited quantities of a variety of products economically -- as differentiated from continuous process petroleum refineries and chemical plants --

they exemplify the reverse orientation which is likely to become increasingly

important: designing the plant as a whole and then defining the functions and

needed characteristics of the component parts, instead of developing robots and

programmable controls for a succession of individual operations within existing

plant characteristics.

What are the policy implications of such observations? There is ample

basis within the basic values of the American” economic system for questioning

the advisability of governmental support for efforts by private firms to develop

appropriable commercial improvements in robot capabilities or in other technologies. But there are very cogent reasons indeed for recognizing the government’s responsibility for supporting research and development programs seeking

to extend and enrich the pre-commercial scientific and engineering foundations of

increasingly effective industrial operations.

Most private firms seldom undertake technological development programs which

are unlikely to reach commercial fruition in less than 5 to 8 years, including

the time necessary to construct needed production facilities and to begin

marketing their products. One of the most promising means of multiplying such

private efforts would be to increase the array of technologies which have emerged

from the often lengthy, costly and risky processes of intermediate development

between basic research findings and a level of refinement deemed to be within

striking distance of appropriable forms of commercialization. Moreover, such

advances represent additions to national resources of knowledge which are likely

to stimulate application efforts in many other sectors of the economy and social

services, including office operations, construction, household services and health

(11) and rehabilitation activities.

(10) As an illustration of current efforts in this direction, see Proceedings of

the Autofact West Conference (Dearborn, MI: Society of Manufacturing Engineers,

Nov. 1980) Volumes I and II.

(11) For further discussion, see B. Cold, Productivity, Technology and Capital:

Economic Analysis, Managerial Strategies and Government Policies (Lexington,MA:

D. C. Heath - Lexington Books, 1979) pp. 302-303.
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers ● 113

23

It should also be noted that one of the most important future sources of

technological competitiveness in manufacturing industries -- the development of

increasingly encompassing systems of programmable automation -- has not yet

advanced sufficiently to minimize the possibility that intensified domestic

efforts might not only match but might even surpass foreign progress. It should

be recognized, however, that vendors of particular components are not likely to

make substantial investments in developing broadly comprehensive systems of programmable controls. Indeed, they are more likely to resist any such developments

which might generate requirements for components with characteristics different

from their own offerings. Moreover, few manufacturers are likely to develop

programmable automation systems which are applicable beyond their own unique

operating and organizational arrangements. Hence, the practical questions would

seem to be: what span of operating and functional coverage would be applicable

widely enough to warrant the investment in developing it? and who might consider

it worth making such a commitment? Efforts to develop such systems in aircraft

manufacturing plants are being supported by government agencies. And some private

firms have joined in developing some common components of such systems. But no

comprehensive review of what needs to be done, or what the benefits of more effectively organized efforts might be, is available at this time. Here, then, is

another area in which governmental support may yield valuable contributions to

advancing the competitiveness of domestic manufacturing.

2. On the Adequacy of Diffusion Rates

The impact of technological advances on market competitiveness is determined

not by the location or rate of their development, but by the rate of their diffusion and the extent of their utilization. Although some observers claim that

Japanese industry has surpassed the United States in the utilization of programmable automation systems as well as of robots, such applications still account

for only very limited sectors of their manufacturing industries and are even sparser

in Western Europe, Accordingly, there is still a wide open opportunity for domestic

manufacturing to overcome its current lags in this area and thereby achieve major

improvements in its productive efficiency and cost competitiveness.

What factors have retarded the more rapid diffusion of these technologies?

Perhaps the most important influence has been the basic unawareness of most industrial managements of the far-reaching potentials of this burgeoning revolution

in manufacturing technology. Such inadequate appreciation of these potentials
114 . Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

24

may be attributed in part to the limited knowledge of such capabilities of most

of the senior engineering officials responsible for advising top management about

important technological developments. Another influential factor has been the

tendency of firms to continue relying on processes for developing innovational

proposals, and on capital budgeting models for evaluating them, which worked

reasonably well for incremental improvements in established technologies in the

past, but which have serious shortcomings in generating and evaluating proposals

for major advances in technology like programmable automation. (12)

Such restricted perspectives have also been supported by the concentration

of most vendors of programmable control systems and of robots on selling bits and

pieces to the lower level officials concerned with the sub-sectors likely to be

directly affected by their application, thus reinforcing the traditional view

that technical innovations can best be evaluated by specialists in the operations

immediately involved, instead of emphasizing the broader potentials rooted in these

emerging technologies. Widespread awareness of the shortcomings and resulting

penalties of some early applications have also encouraged disinterest in these

developments. It is important to recognize in addition that most universities

have been quite backward in recognizing the new potentials of manufacturing technology and of providing the educational programs and research facilities needed

to train urgently needed specialists and to provide urgently needed advances in

related knowledge.

There would be no basis, of course, for efforts by government to urge all

manufacturers to adopt these innovations, inasmuch as differences in their needs

and resources ensure that no advances in technology are equally attractive for

all firms even in the industries most directly affected. But it might well be

desirable for government agencies to undertake active programs to help develop

fuller understanding in industry of the potentials and accomplishments, as well

as the current limitations, of programmable automation systems and robotics --

including periodic reports on progress in the development and utilization of such

advances abroad. And such agencies might well consider exploring with a reasonable

array of universities the possibilities and desirability of expanding educational

as well as research programs in various sectors of manufacturing technology -- and

helping to finance the acquisition of needed facilities as well as some scholarship

aid.

(12) For a detailed discussionof these processes and models, see B.Gold, m

Improved Model for Managerial Evaluation and Utilization of Computer-Aided

Manufacturing: A Report to the National Research Council Committee on

Computer-Aided Manufacturing (Washington, D. C., March 1981)”

.
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers ● 115

25

3. Effects of Altering Development and Diffusion Rates

Appraising the adequacy of current rates of adopting and utilizing programmable automation and robotics obviously requires consideration of attendant

enbefits and burdens. Past adoptions of both have been sufficiently limited and

gradual to engender little observable effects on the employment and skill requirements of the work force, while increasing the need for servicing personnel. This

experience has engendered some unconvincing assurances that the accelerated diffusion of such technologies will not entail significant displacements of labor

at the same time that others have emphasized the urgency of utilizing these advances

in order to overcome serious shortcomings in cost competitiveness through the

attendant reductions made possible in labor requirements.

The basic fact is that unemployment in any firm is caused primarily by a

decline in its competitiveness. If it fails to adopt the technological advances

utilized by competitors, its employment will decline much more rapidly than if it

adopts such advances, even if these involve some displacement of labor. Moreover,

for many domestic industries such effects represent costs which have already been

exacted and which threaten to become even greater if technological lags are not

reduced. Regaining competitiveness in some domestic industries may now require

reductions in man-hour requirements per unit of output of at least 20-30 per

cent. (13) Moreover, such lags are continuing to grow as foreign competitors’

efforts to surpass American performance keep intensifying -- as may be illustrated

by Japanese developments in the steel, automobile, machine tool and semiconductor

industries. In short, major improvements in the performance of domestic industries

is imperative. Hence, rejecting attempts to accelerate the diffusion of programmable automation and robotics could only be justified by identifying and then

promoting other means of achieving the needed large advances in the productive

efficiency and cost competitiveness of major industries within the next five years.

It should also be recognized that implementing the major advances in technology involved in accelerating tha application of programmable automation represents

a much more difficult and far–reaching challenge to management than is generally

recognized. The key reason for this is the failure to recognize that basic technologies are built not only into the production machinery, but also into:

(13) For a comparison of labor requirements in the Japanese and U.S. steel industries,

see B. Gold, “Steel Technologies and Costs in the U.S. and Japan”, Iron and

Steel Engineer, April 1978. Japanese translation in Joho Shuho (Tokyo)

July 1978.
116 . Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

a.

b.

c.

d.

e.

Each of

serving

gradual

26

the expertise of the technical personnel;

the structure and operation of the production system;

the economically feasible range of changes in product designs and productmix;

and the very criteria used to evaluate the capabilities of new capital

goods; as well as

the skills and organization of labor.

these represents powerful and mutually reinforcing commitments to preexisting operating and organizational arrangements, except for small,

and localized changes. Hence major advances are not likely to be achieved

unless they are pushed aggressively by senior managers committed to achieve them

and willing to invest the resources and to introduce the organizational means

necessary to implement such programs.

4. Other Incentives and Deterrents

One of the most important stimuli to the increasing diffusion of robots has

been the gradually growing awareness among managements, engineers and labor that

these have proven themselves practical and economical in an expanding array of

applications, and hence are becoming an increasingly unavoidable option among the

alternatives to be considered whenever plans to improve productive efficiency are

being developed. This fact alone has forced production managers and engineers to

seek more information about robot capabilities, limitations and costs, thereby

sensitizing them to the kinds of applications where they might prove most rewarding.

And such inquiries from prospective customers obviously help to focus the development efforts of robot manufacturers on meeting newly emerging market opportunities.

On the other hand, one of the influential deterrents to more rapid adoptions

of robots has been managerial concern about labor reactions. The introduction

of robots to replace operators in dangerous or especially uncomfortable environments was readily accepted, of course, as, was their use in unduly exhausting jobs.

The use of robots in” highly routinized (“boring”) jobs has also been commonly

accepted by labor provided that the replaced operators were given other assignments.

But there seems to be widespread concern among managers that robot installations

which threaten substantial employment reductions in existing plants may well engender serious labor problems, whose resolution would be likely to reduce expected

cost-savings substantially. Major installations are accordingly likely to be

restricted to new plants which can establish new manning levels in accordance with

their new operating characteristics. Such managerial concerns need not, of course,
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers . 117

27

prevent the increasing use of robots in older plants, but they would seem to

encourage introducing robots only slowly and in scattered operations, thereby

minimizing the rate of gains in productivity and cost savings while easing labor

resistance. Only when an immediate threat to the survival of the plant is recognized by labor are such resistances likely not to inhibit major readjustments.

But it should be noted once again that large scale introductions of robots

would seldom offer substantial economies anyhow, except as a means of implementing

plans for broader programmable automation. And these can seldom be retrofitted

into old plants, except through major modernization programs involving changes

in production facilities and equipment as well as operating practices.

Consideration of large scale programs of programmable automation and roboticization, however, raises fundamental questions concerning the past balancing

of prospective incentives and deterrents by managements, and the possible need

to shift that balance to provide greater encouragement to undertaking the costly

and risky commitments involved in developing and adopting major technological

advances. Key elements would seem to include:

a.

b.

c.

increasing the prospective profitability of longer term investments in

advanced production facilities and in seeking to develop major technological improvements in processes as well as products;

increasing the availability of trained technical manpower to guide and

manage such developments as well as the availability of a richer foundation of scientific and technological research and pre-commercial

development as the basis for private commercialization efforts;

increasing labor recognition of the urgency of achieving major advances

in cost competitiveness in order to ease threats to employment and also

easing resulting burdens on labor resulting from co-operation in the

utilization of technological innovations offering such advances.

Meeting such needs would seem to require substantial contributions from

the government, from labor organizations and from universities as well as from

industrial managements. And failure to meet such needs would probably exact

penalties from each of these beneficiaries of an effective industrial economy. (14)

(14) For more detailed discussion, see B. Cold, productivity, ‘technology and

Capital: Economic Analysis, Managerial Strategies and Government Policies

(Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath - Lexington Books, 1979) chapter 17. AISO

see B. Gold, An Improved Model for Managerial Evaluation and Utilization

of Computer–Aided Manufacturing: A Report to the National Research Council

Committee on Computer-Aicled Manufacturing (Washington, I). C., March 1981).
118 ● Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

PAINE WEBBER MITCHELL HUTCHINS

ROBOTICS AND ITS RELATIONSHIP

TO THE AUTOMATED FACTORY

Eli S. Lustgarten

Table of Contents

I.

II.

III .

IV.

v.

VI.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

Fig. 1.

This

INTRODUCTION

OVERVIEW: REDISCOVERING THE FACTORY

AN ANALYSIS OF ROBOT USE

What Exactly Is A Robot?

Who Would Use Robots: How and Why

Robot Demand Expected To Be Sensitive To Economic Cycles

AN ANALYSIS OF ROBOT MANUFACTURING

Multisector Industry To Evolve In The 1980s

Longer-Term Trends: Automation Companies Will Likely Be Large

Robot Production: Generalists With A Niche For Specialists

R&D: A Crucial Investment

Learning Curve Pricing Key To Industry Growth

ROBOT INTRODUCTION A SIGNIFICANT IMPACT ON MANUFACTURING OPERATIONS

CAPITAL: KEY TO SUCCESS OF BOTH PRODUCERS AND USERS

Index of Tables

Machine Tools In Use

Time Losses In Manufacturing

Geographic Distribution of Robots

1979 Estimated Unit Robot Shipments

Japanese Market --Production Share of Industrial Robots, By Type

Value Of 1979 Robot Shipments To Users In Japan

Possible GM Robot Base (Cumulative)

Median Average Expected Payback Period

Production of Japanese Industrial Robots

Structure of the Minicomputer Industry In 1970

Estimated U.S. Robot Sales By Manufacturer

Users Will Seek More Help For Robot Integration (Median Estimate)

Strategic Purchases By Large Companies In the Field Of Automation

Rapid Robot Industry Growth Projected

Sources of Future Robotic Technical Personnel

characteristics of Manufacturing

1

5

5

6

8

9

9

11

12

12

12

14

15

3

4

5

6

7

7

7

8

8

9

10

10

11

14

15

4

report was prepared for the Robotics Workshop of the Congressional Office of

Technology Assessment held in Washington, D.C. on July 31, 1981.
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers ● 119

Basic ROBOTICS AND ITS RELATIONSHIP

—

Analysis TO THE AUTOMATED FACTOR Y

 ‘

Paine Webber

Mitchell Hutchins Inc.

INTRODUCTION

More attractive technology, the end of the baby boom, the need to modernize an aging

U.S. manufacturing base and to reduce the use of labor more expensive than most o f our

international competition, and a more favorable tax structure will lead to increasingly

automated factories. One product, the robot, is likely to become a key building block

in the penetration of factory’ automation into the manufacturing world. The purpose of

this report is to provide a framework for analyzing the robot industry and its

interrelationship with U.S. manufacturing techniques.

This report is divided into several sections:

. An overivew of the general status of U.S. manufacturing and the potential need

for robots.

An analysis of current and potential uses of robots.

An analysis, from the robot producers’ point of view, of the likely evolution

of the robot market and key competitive factors.

. A discussion of the impact of robots on manufacturing operations.

A discussion from both the producers and users’ point of view of capital

availability and potential financial incentive programs which could foster

development of the robot industry.

OVERVIEW:

REDISCOVERING

THE FACTORY

the

The automated factory has been a dream of the manufacturing world. The production

manager, always pressured to improve output, has been influenced by classical

economists who ranked technological advancement as the most important determinant of

productivity (38%), capital investment second (25%), with labor accounting for only 14%

of the changes. However, U.S. business has had to operate in an exceptionally

difficult economic environment during most of the 1970s, a period of rapidly increasing

inflation, exploding energy prices and gyrating money markets. These factors

contributed to a decade of sluggish economic growth, weak research and development

spending and economic policies that favored consumption over investment, resulting in

real capital spending that significantly trailed the strong outlays of the 1960s. The

1.5% productivity growth during 1973-79 was half our historic average, with some

economists suggesting that labor may have been the only factor in the classical

equation that contributed more to productivity growth since 1973 than it did from 1948.

—

July 31, -1981 --

—.

——----Eli S. Lustgarten (312) 580-8213 . .

. 

nOlnfOfmallOrI Conla,nadnere,n naSbOQn ObtalnOd frOm SOurC4S W0b0(6@S10h f81taOlC but ,lSaCCuraCy ,S not guaranteed Patne Webbef M!lcheil HulCh(ns Inc ● ndlot Pa,ne Web~f

achsom & CIJrtIs Incorporated ● ndlor Blyln Eastman Paine Weobef Incofporaled a(fll,aled comoan,es andlor If?eof olf,cer~ dtreclors employees or SIOChholders may at \,mes h~ve ~

Omllon ,muo,ng an ● fblfaQeof Ool,on Qos!t(on n IhSi SbCultllOs described heresn ● nd may sell of OUY !nem 10 or trom cuslomefs These companies mav from t,m.IO ttme ● ct as ~

onsultant Ioacomoany bebng reported UOOn Cogyr,gnt 1981 byPa!ne tieOOer U,!cne/l Hufch!ns nc allfqh(s reserved
120 . Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

Mitchell Hutchins Inc.

Real GNP Real Gross Private Real Producers Real P&E Productivity y

Growth Fixed Investment Durable Equipment

1959-72 3.8$ 4.9 % 5 .7%

1973-79 2 .5% 2. 1% 2.8$ 2.1$

Growth

3.1%

1 .5%

The economic environment of the 1970s also favored capital outlays that resulted in a

quick payback. AS economists Burton G. Malkiel has pointed out:

"From 1948 to 1973 the (net book value of capital equipment) per

unit of labor grew at an annual rate of almost 3 percent. Since

1973, however, lower rates of private investment have led to a

decline in that growth rate to 1.75 percent. Moreover, the recent

composition of investment (in 1978) has been skewed toward equipment

and relatively short-term projects and away from structures and

relatively long-lived investments. Thus our industrial plant has

tended to age..."

The deline of the U.S. manufacturing base can clearly be seen by looking

at the age of U.S. machine tools in place (Table 1) :

Two-thirds of all U.S. machine tools are over ten years old and one-third are

more than twenty years old.

The technological penalty is even more severe as sophisticated numerical

control equipment has made only slight inroads into the manufacturing process.

By contrast, capital investment as a percentage of GNP in France and West Germany

was more than 20% greater than that in the U.S. , while in Japan the percentage was

almost double ours.

Corporate managers, shocked by faltering productivity and loss of markets to

international competition, have begun to perceive a connection between their

deteriorating competitive positions and the neglect of the part of their businesses

that actually produces goods. However, until recently, productivity was an economist’s

term rarely used by businessmen. It is now dawning on some managements that

responsibility for their competitive listlessness cannot be blamed simply on the

decline of work effort, unreasonable government regulation or a shortfall in capital

investment. Rather, they are beginning to see it as symptomatic of something wrong

with the way manufacturing operations are set up and organized.

As previously indicated, technological advancement, including improved management

techniques and integration of the manufacturing process, is the most important factor

in the classical equation for productivity. Hence, two related technologies, computers

and robots, offer prime opportunities for improvement. U.S. industry today is just

beginning to reap the harvest of computerized innovations that could revolutionize

production processes during the 1980s.

Until recently, the rationale for robots was that they were useful in heavy, hot,

hazardous and even boring environments. In addition to this ability to remove people

from an unhealthy and/or even dangerous environment, robots are a key engine of change

in the manufacturing process. Robots, particularly with the addition of computer type

circuitry, are the initial entry into flexible automation.

American corporations have been behind the Japanese in recognizing the potential of

computers and robots for reducing production costs and increasing the flexibility and

versatility of factory operations. While the pentration of robots and computers into

2
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers . 121

Mitchell Hutchins Inc.

i

H

3

90-240 0 - 82 - 9
122 ● Exploratory workshop on the Social Impact of Robotics

Mitchell Hutchins Inc.

the manufacturing world will be concentrated initially into those areas which will

result in reduced manufacturing costs primarily through direct labor savings and

enhanced quality, the ultimate evolution will probably be toward encompassing that

technology as part of a flexible manufacturing systems approach to production. A

recent Machine Tool Task Force study highlighted the characteristics of manufacturing

(Figure 1) and advocated the development of flexible manufacturing systems to handle

production at more economical costs and at an increased rate of productivity.

Characteristics of manufacturing Figure 1

Type of

production:

Piece Batch Mass

Ioo % 1

High

estimate

L

L o w

es!lmate

54

<u+::<:: .-*

10-300 Over 200

30015.000 over 10,OOO

Maine engines.

large electric

motors,

tractors

NC with auto

part-handling,

machining cell,

Autos. fasteners.

small

appliances

Transfer.

dedicatad

spe cial

Typical

Manual

machines

stand-done

NC

flex mfg syst machine

Source: Machine Tool Task Force on Machine Tool Technology

Table 2: Time Losses in Manufacturing

Low Volume Mid-Volume High Volume

Productive Cutting

Cutting Conditions

Set-up/Loading/Gauging

Tool Change

Idle Time

Incomplete Second

and Third Shifts

Holidays and Vacations

or Plant Shutdown

Equipment Failure

Inadequate Storage

Work Standard Allowance

and Miscellaneous

6%

2

12

.-

2

8%

4

7

7

--

22%

--

14

7

--

44 40

27

7

7

34

--

--

28

6

--

16

Source : Machine Tool Task Force on Machine Tool Technology
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers . 123

Mitchell Hutchins Inc.

The decade of the 1980s will see the need to modernize the U.S. manufacturing base at a time

when the change in demographics will result in a sharp decline in the number of workers available for blue collar jobs as well as an overall drop in the number of people entering the work

force as a whole. U.S. industry will have to quicken its pace of automation if it is to remain

competitive, and only through the widespread use of computers and robots in the manufacturing

sector will the automated factory eventually become a reality.

AN ANALYSIS

OF ROBOT USE

What Exactly

Is a Robot?

Disagreement exists among both foreign and American manufacturers over the appropriate definition of an industrial robot:

The most widely quoted definition has been published by the Robot Institute of

America (RIA) , a trade association of trade manufacturers and users. The RIA

defines a robot as “...a reprogrammable, multifunctional manipulator designed

to move material, parts, tools or specialized devices through variable motions

for the performance of a variety of tasks."

The Japanese Industrial Robot Associates (JIRA) specified four levels of robots:

1. Manual manipulators that perform fixed or preset sequences.

2. Teaching playback robots that repeat fixed instructions after being

taught a work procedure.

3. N.C. robots executing operations on the basis of numerically coded

information.

4. Intelligence robots that perform various functions through its sensing

and recognizing capabilities.

While many other definitions abound, the key difference is that by commonly accepted American

standards, a robot should be both programmable and versatile. Hence, the RIA would not include

manual manipulators, so that Japanese and U.S. robot population statistics are not precisely

comparable. Definitional differences aside, Japan leads all other countries in its acceptance,

use and government support of robots. Their industry lead is substantial, particularly when

viewed in relationship to the relative size of their GNP.

Table 3: Geographic Distribution of Robot s

Using RIA

A S Reporte d Definitio n

Japan 47,000 10,00 0

Us. 3,255

Europe

West Germany

Sweden

Ital y

Polan d

Norway

England

Finlan d

Belgiu m

5,85 0 850

600

500

720 360

200

185

130

20

Othe r

Tota l

Sourc e : R-IA, JIRA, Business Week.

1,40 0

17,500

Breakdown of U.S. Market

Programmable Non-Servo Controlled —General Purpose

Servo Controlled --Point to Poin t

1,80 0

‘-Continuous Path 355

19

5

3

3

2

1

1

1

8

100

Unit s

1,100

2,155

3,255

source: JIRA, RIA.

5
124 ● Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

Mitchell Hutchins Inc.

There are basically two classes of robots:

Non-servo controlled robots in which the tool center point can stop only at the

end points of each axis. Many different motions can be programmed in sequence,

but only to these end points. There is no provision for acceleration or deceleration.

Servo controlled robots are far more sophisticated and can generally be programmed

to stop at any point within its range of movement. Motion is controlled by oil

flowing through servovalves or by D.C. motors, allowing acceleration or deceleration to be achieved.

Robot control usually takes two forms --point to point and continuous path. A

point to point robot can be programmed to stop at predetermined points, but movement is not controlled between these points. A continuous path robot can follow

an irregular path exactly.

Low technology robots can often complete a task as well as the more sophisticated models.

The Japanese appear more acutely aware of this and tend to concentrate on implementing existing

technology. Above all, the industrial robot must be a practical device to successfully penetrate the manufacturing world. Our discussions with many industrial manufacturers indicates

three key characteristics required by users:

1.

2.

3.

Flexibility of applications, either in the area of (material) handling or as

a processor (painting, welding, etc.).

High level of reliability with a minimum of downtime.

Ease of teaching, either with on or off line programmability, usually with

teach boxes.

Who Would Use

Robots: How and Why

In 1979 the RIA estimated

shipments in the U.S.

Automotive

that six industry segments accounted for the bulk of unit robot

Table 4: 1979 Estimated Unit Shipments

Units % of Total

249 18

Casting/Foundry 298 21

Heavy Manufacturing 138 10

Light Manufacturing 513 37

Electrical/Electronic 156 11

Aerospace 13 1

Other 33 2

Total 1,400 100

Source: RIA.

As the majority of robots installed in the U.S. today are low or medium technology devices,

the analysis of user purchases of robots by value would probably yield a different hierarchy

of industry segments, with the automotive industry clearly in front. Our end use market by

industry sector appears to be developing along the lines of the Japanese industry (Table 6).

6
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers ● 125

Mitchell Hutchins Inc.

Table 5: Japanese Market

Production Share of Industrial Robots, by Type

% Unit s % Value

Manipulators and Sequential Robots 89% 70%

Teaching Playback Robots 5 17

N.C. Robots 1 4

Intelligent Robots 5 9

Source: J.I.R.A.

Table 6: Value of 1979 Robot Shipments to Users in Japan

Automobile Industry 38.4%

Electrical Machinery 17.5

Plastic Molding 10.8

Metal Products 8.1

Precision Machining

& Metal Working 6.0

Iron & Steel 4.2

Other 15.0

Total 100.0

Source: J.I.R.A.

Whether or not the auto industry was the dominant purchaser of robots in the U.S. in the

1970s is a moot point; it clearly will be the driving force for the industry in the 1980s.

It’s no longer a secret that General Motors has projected an installed base of robots in its

facilities as high as 14,000 by 1990.

Table 7: Possible GM Robot Base (Cumulative)

1978 1979 1980 1984 1986 1988 1990

Cumulative 1 6 0 230 302 3,500 6,500 10,000 14,000

Source: GM.

As the robotics market is expected to be dominated by the automotive and other heavy manufacturing segments, at least during the first half of the 1980s, the principal applications

are unlikely to vary significantly from the current uses over the near-term:

Spot welding, which we estimate to account for

35-40% of total robot industry sales.

Material handling, including machine loading and unloading.

Die casting, investment casting, stamping, forging and press loading.

Paint spraying

. Palletizing.

. Assembly.

Toward the middle

and finishing.

of the 1980s, arc welding systems should begin to grow rapidly and become

the most important welding sector as demand for spot welders plateaus. During the latter part

of the decade, it is likely for arc welders, machine loading and unloading and assembly robots

to be the primary areas of growth, with assembly alone perhaps representing 35-40% of the total

and perhaps nearly half of the annual growth.

The traditional rationale as to why industry purchased robots was that they offer a means to

increase productivity and free workers from boring and unsafe tasks. A recent Delphi Survey

by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) indicates that there are two key factors as
126 ● Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

Mitchell Hutchins Inc.

the important crieteria for robot purchases :

1. Reduce manufacturing costs

2. Provide direct labor savings.

Other factors also cited include enhanced product quality, an improved working environment

and tying into other forms of computerized automation though the relative importance of these

are clearly below the first two mentioned. The median average expected payback period runs

between 2-3 years and is not expected to change materially during the first half of the 1980s.

Table 8: Median Average Expected Payback Period

Now 1985

Automotive 2.7 Years 2.0 Years

Casting/Foundry 3.0 2.5

Heavy Manufacturing 3.0 3.0

Light Manufacturing 2.0 2.0

Electrical/Electronic 2.0 2.0

Aerospace 2.0 2.5

Source: RIA.

While foreign built robots are not a significant factor currently, it is expected that increased exports from Japan by 1983 as well as foreign owned U.S. manufacturing facilities

will lead to foreign manufacturers maintaining a significant presence in the market. The SME

survey suggested that 20% of the dollar value of robots is likely to be supplied by foreign

manufacturers, with cost advantage and overall quality (manufacturing and design) being the

key factors that led to a foreign built purchase.

Robot Demand Expected

To Be Sensitive To

Economic Cycles”

It appears quite likely that demand for robots as well as other factory automation equipment

will be a cyclical as well as a growth market. Using expected cost reduction and direct labor

savings as well as productivity improvement as part of a return on investment analysis suggests

that manufacturers will be sensitive to a reduction in business expectations and cash flow

which can result from an economic downturn. This has been the case in Japan where industrial

robot sales in terms of both unit production and value showed moderate sensitivity to economic

conditions in 1971 and 1975 despite the small size of the industry.

It is conceivable for the U.S. robot sector to evolve into a strong cyclical growth market

somewhat akin to the minicomputer or semiconductor sector, i.e. strong unit and sales growth

with each trough in demand significantly higher (perhaps 30-40%) than the previous trough.

Table 9: Production of Japanese Industrial Robots

Units Value ( Billl )

(000 Units)

1968

1969

1970

1971

1972

1973

1974

1975

1976

1977

1978

1979

Source: JIRA.

0.2

0.4

1.7

1.3

1.7

2.5

4.2

4.4

7.2

8.6

10.1

14.5

0.4

1.5 .

4.9

4.3

6.1

9.3

11.4

11.1

14.1

21.6

27.3

42.4
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers ● 127

Mitchell Hutchins Inc.

AN ANALYSIS OF .

ROBOT MANUFACTURING

Multisector Industry

To Evolve in the 1980s

In 1980, sales of robots by U.S. based companies approached $100 million, up sharply from the

estimated $60-65 million in sales in 1979. While a growth of 50% is impressive during a recessionary environment, the robot industry size was still less than 2% of the $4.69 billion machine

tool industry with which it often was mistakenly included and an insignificant part (4/1000 of

1%) of U.S. GNP. While robots are commonly assumed to be an extension of the machine tool industry because of its strong ties with manufacturing, we believe that the industry will evolve

into its own subset of the flexible automation equipment sector with a multitude of segments 

much akin to the early development of the minicomputer industry in the 1960s and early 1970s.

However, in contrast to the minicomputer industry, it is conceivable for the major participants

in robotics to significantly change character by the next decade. We believe it is likely for

a significant portion of robot manufacturers to become part of major companies organized to ,

supply systems and subsystems for the factory of the future. A pure robot company might only

service a small, specialized segment of the factory automation market.

It is our opinion that the structure of the robotic sector will evolve in a manner similar

to the early stage development of the minicomputer industry. Through the mid-1960s, the minicomputer industry was dominated by two major computer manufacturers. Beginning in the second

half of the 1960s and into the 1970s, this sector developed a more elaborate structure.

Table 10: Structure of the Minicomputer Industry in 1970

Peripheral Equipment

Manufacturers

Programming

The interfaces depicted by this

1. The end users who could. .

Buys Makes

Peripherals Mainframes

Software Peripherals

Software

systems

Minicomputers Peripherals

Software (includes terminals

and secondary

memories)

Minicomputers

Minicomputers Peripherals

Peripherals Software

Software Systems

Engineering Minicomputers

Softwar e

Minicomputers Systems

Peripherals Softwar e

structure can essentially

Sells to

OEM's

Independent systems houses

End-use r

End-user

OEM

End-user

be split into four subsegments:

2. purchase a system from the original equipment supplier directly, or. . ,

3. sometimes go to a group Of independent consultants who help the purchaser

put together systems and subsystems, or. . .

4. sometimes turn to a company that has developed a turnkey product using OEM

supplier equipment as the heart of the system.

9
128 . Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

Mitchell Hutchins Inc.

As users became more sophisticated, they assumed greater responsibility for the integration of

the system. A service segment began to evolve about a decade later as the indicated base of

the product grew. 

The robot industry appears to be developing along the same lines. Currently, two manufacturers,

Unimation (subsidiary of Condec) and Cincinnati Milacron, dominate the industry with an estimated

70% of the market. These companies are four to five times larger than the nearest competitor

(Table 11).

Table 11: Estimated 1980 U.S. Robot Sales by Manufacturer

Unimation

Cincinnati

DeVilbiss

ASEA (U.S.

PRAB

AutoPlace

Nordson

Mobot

Automatix

Other

Total

Sales

Millions

(Condec) $ 40.0

Milacron 30.0

(Champion Spark Plug) 9.0

Operation) 7.5

6.0

(Copperweld) 4.5

0.7

0.7

0.4

1.2

100.0

Source: PWMH.

Purchasers during the early marketing stages worked with the robot supplier in order to integrate robots into the manufacturing process and occasionally outside consultants were used because of the lack of support available for the process.

Over the past several years, U.S. manufacturers have shown increasing interest in the concept

of families of parts for greater manufacturing efficiency. This has heightened the interest

of Us. companies in flexible manufacturing systems and manufacturing cells with the primary

goal of generating a high level of production of a wide range of family components with the

flexibility to change, a capability previously available only with a sharp reduction of output.

This change in the manufacturing concept has refocused the efforts of robot manufacturers

toward the growing areas of applications and systems. Moreover, new “companies such as Automatix,

Inc. and Robogate Systems Inc. , were founded on the concept of turnkey installations integrating

robots into flexible manufacturing systems.

The likely evolution of these developments can probably be illustrated by the responses of

U.S. manufacturers to the 1981 SME Delphi Forecast for Robotics (Table 12). In essence, the

purchasers of robots will continue to make use of independent consultants, but also will turn

more and more to turnkey system suppliers during the 1980s.

Table 12: Users Will Seek More Help

for Robot Integration (Median Estimate)

1980 1985

% of Robots Purchased by Users 15%

with Assistance of Outside Independent

Consultants Doing Systems Engineering

% of Robots Procured as a Turnkey 20 25

Packaqe with One-Source Layout,

Robot Supply and Installation

Purchaser Procures on Individual Basis; 80 70

Purchaser Assumes Responsibility for

Layout and Inteqration with Installation

Done by Equipment Manufacturer

Source: 1981 SME Delphi Forecast --Median Results.

1990

15%

30

70

10
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers . 129

Mitchell Hutchins Inc.

Longer-Term Trends:

Automation Companies

Will Likely be Large

While robots are often used in an initial isolated application (primarily to gain experience)

the evidence is clear that the robot is viewed as a piece of equipment to be integrated into

the production process. Moreover, the U.S. production base is in dire need of modernization

and, most important, the mid-1980s demographic shift will lead to a drop in the entry level

work force at a time when the average skilled machinist in this country is currently estimated

to be about 56 years old. These fundamentals suggest that U.S. manufacturers will have to adjust their methods and philosophy of production, emphasizing the substitution of capital for

labor or, in one word --automation.

The evolution of factory automation outside the U.S. has an interesting characteristic. Most

of the companies in the forefront of the technology are part of the organization that makes

much of the equipment used. What emerges is that the knowledge of the factory environment is

the key factor to the successful implementation of automation. In Japan, for example, Toyota

was originally a subsidiary of a machine tool company (Toyoda) and its machine tool technology

cannot be sold externally without the car company’s approval. Nissan has a machine tool company as does Hitachi and Komatsu, the sixth largest producer of transfer lines in Japan.

A similar phenomenon is developing around the world with respect to the implementation of

Robots, i.e. many of the companies introducing robots into the manufacturing process produce

a version for internal consumption. Besides many Japanese concerns, #e list would also include companies such as Volkswagen, Renault and Fiat.

Alternatively, U.S. manufacturing companies rarely produce equipment for their own use. However, as automation techniques begin to take hold, the phenomenon has begun to change. In

robots, for example, companies like General Electric, Texas Instruments and IBM all produce

robots for internal use and General Motors recently announced its own paint spraying robot.

Further, strategic planning within many corporations has led to the identification of the

field of automation as bath a strategic internal operation requirement and a future business

opportunity. This has led to significant acquisitions and internal studies as to how to best

service this cyclical growth phenomena (Table 13).

Table 13 : Strategic Purchases by Larqe Companies

in the Field of Automation

11
130 . Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

Mitchell Hutchins Inc.

The logical evolution of the factory of the future company is one which can put together the

sophisticated systems largely involving computer technologies, electronics and software,

trollers and,

conof course, robots. The requirement for the various technical disciplines, the

high development costs and financial and marketing skills suggest that these companies will tend

to be quite large in nature, with suppliers of industrial pieces of equipment occupying a small

niche in the broad spectrum market for the automated factory.

Robot Production:

Generalists With A

Niche for Specialists

The potential widespread use of robots suggests that the industry will continue to segment

in various ways:

Work envelope and load capacity applications have often been the determinant

of market segmentation by lift capacity:

1. Extremely heavyweight applications

2. Heavy applications, including spot

50 and 350 lbs.

(lift capability in excess of 350 lbs.)

welding resulting in lift capacity between

3. Medium to low weight applications requiring lift capacity of less than 50 lbs.

. Small parts, pick and place and assembly-requirements led to the development of the

market for robots with lift capacity of less than five pounds. The driving force

for market development was the realization that upwards of 90% of the parts of the

average automobile weighed less than three pounds.

. Segmentation by process applications, including painting, spraying and coating and

arc welding.

An analysis of these market segments suggested that a family of general purpose robots with

a choice of drive mechanism, lift capacity and wrist configuration could be produced, with the

intelligence of the robot (electronics and software) used to tailor the general purpose robot

for a specific application. While the major robot producers have adopted this approach, a

small market nich has also developed for a dedicated system, particularly in paint spraying,

primarily because of the intricacies of coating technology. We believe it is likely for this

generalist approach to pervade in the industry, with some specialized niches developing because

of unique process technologies.

R&D: A Crucial

Investment

For robots to be useful across a wider breadth of markets in the future, they must be able to

adjust automatically to alternative production set-ups and have the capability of recognizing

reorienting and manipulating disordered parts. For many assembly and installation procedures,

this adaptive ability would be essential.

The key to the wide market expansion, we believe, lies in the breakthrough in at least two

areas of technology:

. Sensory capabilities, including:

1. Force with application in fitting operations.

2. Tactile with application in both positioning and orienting.

3. Vision with application in positioning, inspection and monitoring.
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers . 131

Mitchell Hutchins Inc.

The ability of the robot to interface with large, computer controlled manufacturing

systems. This includes the ability to create a task description without the necessity of using a robot’s actual motion. The development of off-line programing would

also ease the actual programing task.

Further, the key to better robots lies in vastly improved electronics and software, enhancement of existing software and incorporation of advances in other areas, such as:

.

This

1.

2.

3.

Material: Robots in the future are likely to be built out of various

composites and/or plastics rather than metal.

Spread processes such as coating techniques.

Mechanisms and material handling.

suggests that robots have all the characteristics of a high technology industry:

High levels of R&D spending are a must, with 7-10% of sales, or more, likely.

(Note: Similar to the semiconductor industry.)

The vast number of technologies involved suggest that joint ventures are likely

to occur for advancing the state of the art in robots:

. Unimation’s PUMA robot was developed in a joint venture between

GM and Unimation. Development of the product ended the relationship.

. Cybotech has been formed as a joint venture corporation by Renault

and Ransburg, hopefully to develop a robot by bringing the expertise

of two companies together.

Significant R&D will be done by academia with support help from companies.

This is particularly true in sensors and some vision work is currently being

done by RPI, Purdue, UCLA, Florida State (Gainesville), Stanford, University

of Rhode Island, etc.

R&D ability is fast becoming a barrier to entry in the robot field. Further, it is likely

for proprietary technology to be much more important than patent protection, Similar to the

major technological fields dominated by software and electronics.

Learning Curve

Pricing Key to

Industry Growth

The heavy emphasis on computers, electronics and software as the key method of adapting

general purpose robots for specific application suggests that the pricing of robots will follow the characteristics of high technology industries. Currently, we estimate that around 30%

of the cost of a robot is the electronics and software, with even a higher percentage for the

more sophisticated models. Hence, we believe that the learning (experience) curve is very

important to robotics, and prices should fall as volume increases. For example, one of the

major manufacturers introduced its robot line four years ago. Despite the widely inflationary

times of the past few years, selling prices have remained essentially unchanged, implying an

estimated 30% price reduction in real terms --directly related to the sharp volume increases.

While the base price of robots is likely to decline, the average price per unit is likely to

increase over the next five years. This reflects that robots will probably be equipped with

more extensive accessories such as sensors and vision. Assuming technological advancement and

learning curve pricing, we believe that the robot industry during the 1980s could achieve a

revenue growth upwards of 35% (cyclically), with industry revenues estimated at $500-600 mil–

Lion by 1985 and approaching-$2 billion by 1990.

13
132 . Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

Mitchell Hutchins Inc.

Table 14: Rapid Robot Industry Growth Projected

Sales Units

Millions

1981 $ 150 2,100

1985 500-600 7,000- 8,000

1990 2,000 30,000-40,000

Source: PWMH.

As in most high technology industries, the cost of being wrong in product and/or market decisions is high and could easily be catastrophic for smaller entrepreneurial concerns.

One potential future market development is the growth of the robot leasing business. As in

the computer business, small companies may never have adequate capability to implement robots

efficiently. Leasing robots, along with full support from suppliers, could make sense for

smaller companies with limited capital and no robot-wise employees, making the latest technology readily available.

ROBOT INTRODUCTION A

SIGNIFICANT IMPACT ON

MANUFACTURING OPERATIONS

There is no doubt that robots will revolutionize the workplace. Even if no further technological advancements were made in fields such as sensory perception, robots would still have

a place in the manufacturing process. However, it is impossible to ignore the awkward period

of realignment that must precede the robotics revolution. It is clear that technology is far

more sophisticated compared to the understanding of the social system of the factory.

Robots are threatening to the existing work force. Recent estimates have suggested that upwards of twenty million industrial jobs around the world could be replaced by robots. This includes four million assembly workers, two million machinists, one million painters, two million

welders and flame cutters and six million machine operators. Retraining is believed to be the

major social problem created by rapid robotization, not unemployment.

In both the U.S. and Sweden, for example, many unions have come to accept robots as a method

of easing the most burdensome manufacturing tasks and increasing productivity, both viewed as

a route to a higher standard of living. Swedish unions have actually classified certain dangerous or monotonous jobs as unfit for humans and demanded that they be carried out by robots.

The UAW has. been quoted in publications as stating that higher wages and productivity go hand

in hand and technology, automation and new methodology are a major way to increase productivity.

The method of robot introduction into a manufacturing organization tends to follow the pattern

of selling an initial unit to a company. The sale by the manufacturer has to include:

Extensive customer support, including back-up support and technical

services, simple repairs and parts replacement.

Comprehensive training programs and customer education, as potential

users often do not have the technical background or expertise to make

a robot work on the plant floor.

The first installations tend to be most important, for they are the ones watched most carefully by both management and labor. As companies become more comfortable in using robots,

multiple orders follow, but the need for continuing manufacturers’ support remains. In the

future, robot producers will have to face the problem of support networks that extend throughout the world and offer a variety of services, including education.

14
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers . 133

Mitchell Hutchins Inc.

Within the manufacturing corporation, the jobs created by widespread use of robots and unmanned manufacturing --programmers, technicians, engineers --for the most part require a high

degree of technical training. The jobs which robots eliminate, e.g. assembly workers, painters

and machine operators, are frequently of a lower skill or, if even skilled, require little

technical knowledge. Massive training programs will be needed to prevent the creation of an

oversupply of workers whose skills have become obsolete and a simultaneous shortage of engineers

and technicians. It appears that the manufacturing industry has recognized the problems by the

responses to the SME Robotics Delphi Poll (Table 15) .

Table 15: Sources of Future Robotic Technical Personnel

Updated In-House Manufacturing Engineering Personnel 50%

Hiring of Experienced Personnel from Manufacturer 20

Hiring of Experienced Personnel from Robot Vendor 10

Graduating College Student 15

Source: 1981 SME Delphi Poll.

To date, however, only the barest beginnings of such programs are in place. We also have

recently seen the development of an academic robotics curriculum to help meet the demand for

robot technicians. Macomb County Community College in Warren, Michigan has just introduced

such a program and the State of South Carolina is subsidizing academic training programs at

locations near the new Cincinnati Milacron robot plant.

While we believe the critical issues of manufacturing techniques and labor displacement can

be handled in the short-term, we are becoming more concerned that the magnitude of the problem

could be serious during the second half of the 1980s. Technological advances enhance the capability, economic viability and availability of assembly and inspection robot systems:

The design of products that are compatible with robot handling will

increase in importance. One implication is that the robot specialist

will have to be involved in the product design phase.

It is estimated that assembly workers constitute upwards of 15% of the

U.S. manufacturing work force, and inspection workers probably 5-10%.

These are two areas where advanced robotics could be applied with

astonishing impact.

CAPITAL: KEY TO

SUCCESS OF BOTH

PRODUCERS AND USERS

The need to finance a business in an industry capable of growing 35% annually and requiring

significant levels of R&D and an extensive support network suggests that profitability and

availability of capital is vital. Fortunately, ‘it appears that the members of the robot industry have been able to tap the capital market as needed. There is no doubt that all the

favorable publicity the robot sector has received, including being on the covers of both

Time and Business Week in 1980, has helped contribute to the exceptionally favorable opinion

held by the investment community as to the prospects for robotics.

It is our view that the government would probably not have to get intimately involved in

the financial requirements of the robotics industry. A free market approach should allow this

sector to attract the necessary capital required because of the well-above average growth prospects. This does not preclude the necessity of general policy incentives required by American

businesses. We believe that tax relief, especially higher depreciation write-offs, are the

kinds of programs which would benefit robot producers as well as manufacturers.

15
134 ● Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

Mitchell Hutchins Inc.

Government programs which could be useful in the future would be in the area such as aiding

R&D expenditures through either tax credits or government funds being made available for basic

research.

We believe government aid to the users would be more beneficial to robot manufacturers. This

could take the form of:

Helping companies afford the introduction of robotics into their production

process. We believe this aid could become crucial for smaller companies.

Establishing some sort of showcase, perhaps a national demonstration program,

to provide inspirational leadership and develop a cogent policy for manufacturing techniques.

We believe that manufacturers’ ability to afford robots and other aspects of factory automation is ultimately related to their cash flow. A stable period of economic growth, reasonable

levels of interest rates and controlled inflation as well as government tax policies providing

investment incentives would typify the ideal environment for companies in general to increase

their investment in automated equipment.

However, it’s important to note that the introduction of robots into the manufacturing process essentially breaks the shackles as to how things are done. This implies an important

degree of risk for companies to implement robotic programs, a risk taken currently by the

larger companies in this country.

It appears that government incentives could be exceptionally useful in helping smaller companies absorb the technological risk of introducing automated equipment. The Japanese government, through the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MITI), has adopted programs addressing this

issue in line with the decision that robot production is a major strategic industry for Japan’s

future:

MITI has permitted manufacturers who install robots to depreciate an

additional 121/2% of the purchase price in the first year.

MITI has arranged for direct government, low interest loans to small

and medium scale manufacturers to encourage various type of robot

installations.

MITI has helped encourage the founding of a robot leasing company --Japan

Robot Lease. The objective is to support robot installations by small

and medium scale manufacturers.

We believe it would be advantageous for U.S. policy to consider following the lead of the

Japanese. We also believe that the U.S. government could consider programs to help foster the

spread of automated techniques throughout industry. Heretofore, the Japanese have led the way

with the Japanese Automated Factory Project sponsored by the Agency of Industrial Science and

Technology of MITI. The project, initiated in 1977, aims to help take existing technological

advances into the marketplace, with the acknowledged long-term goal of unmanned manufacturing.

16
App. B—Commissioned Background Papers ● 135

Mitchell Hutchins Inc.

LONG TERM: A REPLAY OF

THE AGRICULTURAL SECTOR

Today, 3. 8% of the U. S. work force is in agriculture, a major change from yesteryear, when

it was the dominant employment sector. This 3.8% produces enough food to feed this country

and makes the U.S. the leading exporter of food. The decline of population in the agricultural

sector occurred with the substitution of capital for labor. There are many people who believe

that, through automation, the percentage of the work force in manufacturing will decline significantly from the current 28.6%. While we do not necessarily believe the extreme number of

1-3% in the next century, there is no doubt that the U.S. work force employed in manufacturing

as we know it today will markedly decline over the next 25 years. Through technology such as

electronics, software, and systems architecture including robots, eventually the automated

factory will begin to be a reality.

July 31, 1981 Eli S. Lustgarten (312) 580-8213

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17
136 “ Exploratory Workshop on the Social Impacts of Robotics

1 .

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

Lustgarten, Eli

Basic Analysis,

Luber, Robert:

Malkiel, Burton

BIBLIOGRAPHY

s .: Factory Automation, Paine Webber Mitchell Hutchins

May 27, 1981.

Rediscovering the Factory, Fortune, July 13, 1981, pp. 52-64.

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Business Review, May/June 1979, p. 81.

Hayes, Robert H. and Abernathy, William J. : Managing Our Way to Economic

Decline, Harvard Business Review, July/August 1980.

Robotics Today, Robotics Institute of America (RIA) News, Spring 1980, p. 7.

Fisk, John D. : Industrial Robots in the U.S. , ‘Issues and Perspectives, Office

of Technology Assessment, Report No. 81-78E, 3/30/81.

Conigliaro, Laura: Robotics, Bache Halsey Stuart Shields Inc. 4/27/80.

Fruehlich, Leopold, Robots to the Rescue, Datamation, January 1981, pp. 85-96.

Robots Join the Labor Force, Business Week, June 9, 1980, pp. 62-73.

American Machinist, October 1980, Special Report 726, pp. 105-128.

1981 Delphi Forecast -Robotics, Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME).

Kitao, Y.: Mechatronics, Nomura Securities Co., Ltd., 10/20/80.