The robots were free? It seems to me that you should take the cost of the robot and divide it by it's life in service hours. Then you would be able to compare the cost to a human employee. Robots are not free labor.
I can imagine these "custom" made robots being expensive at first, but once they are mass produced for the mass automation market, I have a feeling they can pay for themselves with just a year of service.
No doubt. But, it's still not free labor. Also, the maintenance will be expensive and that will have to be factored in. Robots also require preventive maintenance, they are not something that you want to let run until it breaks. Prior to my stint as an engineer for GE Healthcare I was a field engineer for Applied Materials in the semiconductor industry. Probably 25% of my job was programming and maintaining simple robots.
The robots were free? It seems to me that you should take the cost of the robot and divide it by it's life in service hours. Then you would be able to compare the cost to a human employee. Robots are not free labor.
I can imagine these "custom" made robots being expensive at first, but once they are mass produced for the mass automation market, I have a feeling they can pay for themselves with just a year of service.
No doubt. But, it's still not free labor. Also, the maintenance will be expensive and that will have to be factored in. Robots also require preventive maintenance, they are not something that you want to let run until it breaks. Prior to my stint as an engineer for GE Healthcare I was a field engineer for Applied Materials in the semiconductor industry. Probably 25% of my job was programming and maintaining simple robots.