Dear

Dean Baker put it quite well in his Los Angeles Times piece, that Robots are not going to take over the world or YOUR job anytime soon.  While ROBOTS are an important tool to keep US manufacturing competitive, return on the investment is critically dependent on matching task requirements to those functions for which machinery is well suited and utilizing your skilled personnel for those functions for which machines are not well suited.  There are plenty those tasks in the latter category.

While some lower skilled repetitive jobs will disappear, the care and feeding of such sophisticated tools requires more sophisticated people; to manage, maintain, and get the maximum benefit to your bottom line. 

The repetitive or heavy lifting jobs tend to become ergonomic and/or safety issues and serve as a good starting point for machine/robot assistance. Injury and lost workdays are particularly expensive in today's litigious environment and offer opportunity for rapid payback just on the basis of Workman's Compensation cost.  

Eric Wentz

e.wentz@betterbydesign.com