According to the Social Security Office (SSO) under Ministry of Labour in Thailand, it was reported that between 2015 to 2019, there were 94,906 workers injured in 2019 among the cases of accidents at work or work-related ill-health. Additionally, the accidents were most prevalent in machinery sector at 28.09% .
Most local manufacturers are currently facing a growing skilled talent shortage, which strains its overall productivity and growth. At the same time, employers are also facing immense costs associated with workplace-related injuries.
"Cobots can perform tasks that may be dangerous or injury-prone for humans. With built-in safety features that slows the robot arm when a human enters its workspace, cobots can keep human colleagues safe from occupational injuries as it addresses repetitive and dangerous tasks in the manufacturing sector," said James McKew, Regional Director of Asia-Pacific in Universal Robots.
Universal Robots' adjustable safety system allows companies to adjust a range of parameters to reduce the risks involved with implementing an industrial robot application. These include limiting the force, speed, power or momentum of the robot, or restricting its workspace using safety boundaries. Productivity gains, along with the inherently safe design of cobot solutions means this new automation technology could reduce up to 72% of the common causes of injury in manufacturing environments.
"As we move closer to the vision of Industry 5.0 - where man and machine work together on the smart factory floor, the need to consider the safety and compliance requirements of this new kind of workplace has become paramount. Undoubtedly, a collaborative workforce featuring human and robots complements each other in their roles and offers significant opportunities to enhance manufacturing productivity, innovation, safety and overall job satisfaction in the workplace,"said James McKew, Regional Director of Asia-Pacific in Universal Robots.
McKew pointed out that companies can achieve a faster Return On Investment (ROI) by using cobots to free up workers' time, allowing them to tackle higher productivity processes and ultimately acquire new skills.
Unlike traditional robots that require engineer-level programming, cobots are designed to make programming simple through human-machine interfaces (HMI) familiar to anyone who has used a smartphone. For more complex applications, Universal Robots has a comprehensive network of Certified System Integrators and Authorised Training Centres ready to support users with day-to-day operations after the initial installation. By eliminating the need for formal education in programming or robotics, such interfaces and capabilities make the skills gap and learning curve for using cobots diminishingly small.
Universal Robots encourages local manufacturers to adopt the perfect man and machine collaboration. With cobots, manufacturers in Thailand need not fear the impacts caused by the growing skilled talent shortage. The collaboration greatly reduces the time, effort and cost associated with using the same cobot for various tasks as a cobots' flexibility translates to a significantly faster return on investment.
About Universal Robots
Universal Robots (UR) was founded in 2005 to make robot technology accessible to all by developing small, user-friendly, reasonably priced, flexible collaborative robots (cobots) that are safe to work side-by-side with people. Since the first cobot was launched in 2008, the company has experienced considerable growth with the user-friendly cobots now sold worldwide. The company, which is a part of Teradyne Inc., is headquartered in Odense, Denmark, and has regional offices in the United States, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, UK, Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Russia, Turkey, China, India, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Mexico. In 2020, Universal Robots had revenue of USD 219 million. For more information, please visit universal-robots.com.
Source: Mind PR