ROBOTS IN THE BUSINESS ASPECT

 

In today’s society robots are being more and more used. NASA has come up with a robot called Robonaut 2 or also known as R2. R2 weighs about 300 pounds and only consists of a torso, a head, and two arms. It was launched into space on the Discovery, which just so happens to be Discovery’s final launch. As of March 3, 2011, President Obama had called into the International Space Station wondering how the R2 was working but what he found out was that it still has not even been unpackaged onboard. GM believed that using the innovative machinery could contribute astronauts in risky space operations and possibly help automotive plants build safer vehicles faster.

GM came up with this robot to help humans in space to be more proficient and advanced. The Robot is programmed to work alongside humans in today’s society. Knowing this I don’t think that there will be anymore Neal Armstrong or any other human being in space, now it will be Robonaut 2. So eventually there will be no need for human astronauts to even be in space.

Now days automotive plants are starting to use robots instead of human. They have robots now that make each individual door frame. Also they have an assembly line for making the motor in each step. One of the most technological advanced robots is called the Unimate. The Unimate took hot die-castings from machines and which tact the frame of the car together in just a few minutes. Now robots in the automotive plants can assemble a whole car in about 90 hours.

Robots today have been blamed for killing thousands of good-paying manufacturing jobs because you don’t have to pay them and they don’t have to take breaks. In Detroit there are so many jobs that have been lost due to the help and runnings of robots in automotive factories now. American companies need to install even more robots to remain competitive and keep additional jobs from fleeing to China, Mexico and other low-cost countries. American jobs are already competing against China now with all Wal-Mart’s business with China; that itself is already putting people out of jobs and shutting down factories. There is more than 1 million industrial robots in use worldwide, but only 20 percent of them are even used United States. Will this be safer to have robots build our cars or will it be another beginning of human lay-offs?