The implementation of robots into the workplace is steadily becoming more popular. Where initial capital investments may be high, the payoff of bringing robots into the workspace seems to give back endless benefits which far outweighs the costs.

Industrial workplaces are one of the common professional settings that are using robots. Industrial robots take many names, with the most common one being autonomous mobile robots, or AMRs.

AMRs have become popular due to their ability to adapt easily to routine tasks. This includes ease of programming and intuitive routing where inbuilt sensors can detect and avoid obstacles.

How AMRs are implemented into the workpace

In addition, AMRs have become favoured in the workplace for their ability to replace a portion of the human workforce. While this has been contested in literature and in real life, it is not necessarily a negative thing.

AMRs can offer many benefits to working alongside and sometimes in replacement of humans while not necessarily taking human jobs.

These reasons include:

• Taking on repetitive tasks that most people do not want to do, such as waste collection and a transfer of items from point a to b.
• Work in off-hours such as the night shift or holidays. The tasks usually completed in these shifts include menial labour where the pay grade is too low and the hours too odd to be appealing to most people.
• Replacing human labour when they call in sick. This gives employers the advantage of having an extra ‘hand’ on call when an employee is unable to make it. This also saves time on finding a replacement and paying double for sick leave and the extra wage.
• AMRs can be assigned to high-risk jobs and carrying heavy loads. This avoid potential human injury and saves humans for jobs that require a higher level of intelligence.