Robots Compilation Dr. Thomas Lairson
Understanding automation potential
Download 5.27 Mb.
|
- Navigate this page:
- The most automatable activities
- Activities and sectors in the middle range for automation
- Activities with low technical potential for automation
- Leading more automated enterprises
- Robot Exoskeletons March in to Link Mind and Body
- More science than fiction
- Exoskeleton defines a new class of warrior [Video]
Understanding automation potentialIn discussing automation, we refer to the potential that a given activity could be automated by adopting currently demonstrated technologies, that is to say, whether or not the automation of that activity is technically feasible.2 Each whole occupation is made up of multiple types of activities, each with varying degrees of technical feasibility. Exhibit 1 lists seven top-level groupings of activities we have identified. Occupations in retailing, for example, involve activities such as collecting or processing data, interacting with customers, and setting up merchandise displays (which we classify as physical movement in a predictable environment). Since all of these constituent activities have a different automation potential, we arrive at an overall estimate for the sector by examining the time workers spend on each of them during the workweek. Exhibit 1 Technical feasibility is a necessary precondition for automation, but not a complete predictor that an activity will be automated. A second factor to consider is the cost of developing and deploying both the hardware and the software for automation. The cost of labor and related supply-and-demand dynamics represent a third factor: if workers are in abundant supply and significantly less expensive than automation, this could be a decisive argument against it. A fourth factor to consider is the benefits beyond labor substitution, including higher levels of output, better quality, and fewer errors. These are often larger than those of reducing labor costs. Regulatory and social-acceptance issues, such as the degree to which machines are acceptable in any particular setting, must also be weighed. A robot may, in theory, be able to replace some of the functions of a nurse, for example. But for now, the prospect that this might actually happen in a highly visible way could prove unpalatable for many patients, who expect human contact. The potential for automation to take hold in a sector or occupation reflects a subtle interplay between these factors and the trade-offs among them. Even when machines do take over some human activities in an occupation, this does not necessarily spell the end of the jobs in that line of work. On the contrary, their number at times increases in occupations that have been partly automated, because overall demand for their remaining activities has continued to grow. For example, the large-scale deployment of bar-code scanners and associated point-of-sale systems in the United States in the 1980s reduced labor costs per store by an estimated 4.5 percent and the cost of the groceries consumers bought by 1.4 percent.3 It also enabled a number of innovations, including increased promotions. But cashiers were still needed; in fact, their employment grew at an average rate of more than 2 percent between 1980 and 2013. Would you like to learn more about the McKinsey Global Institute? Visit our Technology & Innovation page
Exhibit 2 In manufacturing, for example, performing physical activities or operating machinery in a predictable environment represents one-third of the workers’ overall time. The activities range from packaging products to loading materials on production equipment to welding to maintaining equipment. Because of the prevalence of such predictable physical work, some 59 percent of all manufacturing activities could be automated, given technical considerations. The overall technical feasibility, however, masks considerable variance. Within manufacturing, 90 percent of what welders, cutters, solderers, and brazers do, for example, has the technical potential for automation, but for customer-service representatives that feasibility is below 30 percent. The potential varies among companies as well. Our work with manufacturers reveals a wide range of adoption levels—from companies with inconsistent or little use of automation all the way to quite sophisticated users. Manufacturing, for all its technical potential, is only the second most readily automatable sector in the US economy. A service sector occupies the top spot: accommodations and food service, where almost half of all labor time involves predictable physical activities and the operation of machinery—including preparing, cooking, or serving food; cleaning food-preparation areas; preparing hot and cold beverages; and collecting dirty dishes. According to our analysis, 73 percent of the activities workers perform in food service and accommodations have the potential for automation, based on technical considerations. Some of this potential is familiar. Automats, or automated cafeterias, for example, have long been in use. Now restaurants are testing new, more sophisticated concepts, like self-service ordering or even robotic servers. Solutions such as Momentum Machines’ hamburger-cooking robot, which can reportedly assemble and cook 360 burgers an hour, could automate a number of cooking and food-preparation activities. But while the technical potential for automating them might be high, the business case must take into account both the benefits and the costs of automation, as well as the labor-supply dynamics discussed earlier. For some of these activities, current wage rates are among the lowest in the United States, reflecting both the skills required and the size of the available labor supply. Since restaurant employees who cook earn an average of about $10 an hour, a business case based solely on reducing labor costs may be unconvincing. Retailing is another sector with a high technical potential for automation. We estimate that 53 percent of its activities are automatable, though, as in manufacturing, much depends on the specific occupation within the sector. Retailers can take advantage of efficient, technology-driven stock management and logistics, for example. Packaging objects for shipping and stocking merchandise are among the most frequent physical activities in retailing, and they have a high technical potential for automation. So do maintaining records of sales, gathering customer or product information, and other data-collection activities. But retailing also requires cognitive and social skills. Advising customers which cuts of meat or what color shoes to buy requires judgment and emotional intelligence. We calculate that 47 percent of a retail salesperson’s activities have the technical potential to be automated—far less than the 86 percent possible for the sector’s bookkeepers, accountants, and auditing clerks. As we noted above, however, just because an activity can be automated doesn’t mean that it will be—broader economic factors are at play. The jobs of bookkeepers, accountants, and auditing clerks, for example, require skills and training, so they are scarcer than basic cooks. But the activities they perform cost less to automate, requiring mostly software and a basic computer. Considerations such as these have led to an observed tendency for higher rates of automation for activities common in some middle-skill jobs—for example, in data collection and data processing. As automation advances in capability, jobs involving higher skills will probably be automated at increasingly high rates. The heat map in Exhibit 3 highlights the wide variation in how automation could play out, both in individual sectors and for different types of activities within them.4 Exhibit 3 Activities and sectors in the middle range for automationAcross all occupations in the US economy, one-third of the time spent in the workplace involves collecting and processing data. Both activities have a technical potential for automation exceeding 60 percent. Long ago, many companies automated activities such as administering procurement, processing payrolls, calculating material-resource needs, generating invoices, and using bar codes to track flows of materials. But as technology progresses, computers are helping to increase the scale and quality of these activities. For example, a number of companies now offer solutions that automate entering paper and PDF invoices into computer systems or even processing loan applications. And it’s not just entry-level workers or low-wage clerks who collect and process data; people whose annual incomes exceed $200,000 spend some 31 percent of their time doing those things, as well. Financial services and insurance provide one example of this phenomenon. The world of finance relies on professional expertise: stock traders and investment bankers live off their wits. Yet about 50 percent of the overall time of the workforce in finance and insurance is devoted to collecting and processing data, where the technical potential for automation is high. Insurance sales agents gather customer or product information and underwriters verify the accuracy of records. Securities and financial sales agents prepare sales or other contracts. Bank tellers verify the accuracy of financial data. As a result, the financial sector has the technical potential to automate activities taking up 43 percent of its workers’ time. Once again, the potential is far higher for some occupations than for others. For example, we estimate that mortgage brokers spend as much as 90 percent of their time processing applications. Putting in place more sophisticated verification processes for documents and credit applications could reduce that proportion to just more than 60 percent. This would free up mortgage advisers to focus more of their time on advising clients rather than routine processing. Both the customer and the mortgage institution get greater value. Other activities in the middle range of the technical potential for automation involve large amounts of physical activity or the operation of machinery in unpredictable environments. These types of activities make up a high proportion of the work in sectors such as farming, forestry, and construction and can be found in many other sectors as well. Examples include operating a crane on a construction site, providing medical care as a first responder, collecting trash in public areas, setting up classroom materials and equipment, and making beds in hotel rooms. The latter two activities are unpredictable largely because the environment keeps changing. Schoolchildren leave bags, books, and coats in a seemingly random manner. Likewise, in a hotel room, different guests throw pillows in different places, may or may not leave clothing on their beds, and clutter up the floor space in different ways. These activities, requiring greater flexibility than those in a predictable environment, are for now more difficult to automate with currently demonstrated technologies: their automation potential is 25 percent. Should technology advance to handle unpredictable environments with the same ease as predictable ones, the potential for automation would jump to 67 percent. Already, some activities in less predictable settings in farming and construction (such as evaluating the quality of crops, measuring materials, or translating blueprints into work requirements) are more susceptible to automation. Activities with low technical potential for automationThe hardest activities to automate with currently available technologies are those that involve managing and developing people (9 percent automation potential) or that apply expertise to decision making, planning, or creative work (18 percent). These activities, often characterized as knowledge work, can be as varied as coding software, creating menus, or writing promotional materials. For now, computers do an excellent job with very well-defined activities, such as optimizing trucking routes, but humans still need to determine the proper goals, interpret results, or provide commonsense checks for solutions. The importance of human interaction is evident in two sectors that, so far, have a relatively low technical potential for automation: healthcare and education. Four fundamentals of workplace automation Read the article Overall, healthcare has a technical potential for automation of about 36 percent, but the potential is lower for health professionals whose daily activities require expertise and direct contact with patients. For example, we estimate that less than 30 percent of a registered nurse’s activities could be automated, based on technical considerations alone. For dental hygienists, that proportion drops to 13 percent. Nonetheless, some healthcare activities, including preparing food in hospitals and administering non-intravenous medications, could be automated if currently demonstrated technologies were adapted. Data collection, which also accounts for a significant amount of working time in the sector, could become more automated as well. Nursing assistants, for example, spend about two-thirds of their time collecting health information. Even some of the more complex activities that doctors perform, such as administering anesthesia during simple procedures or reading radiological scans, have the technical potential for automation. Of all the sectors we have examined, the technical feasibility of automation is lowest in education, at least for now. To be sure, digital technology is transforming the field, as can be seen from the myriad classes and learning vehicles available online. Yet the essence of teaching is deep expertise and complex interactions with other people. Together, those two categories—the least automatable of the seven identified in the first exhibit—account for about one-half of the activities in the education sector. Even so, 27 percent of the activities in education—primarily those that happen outside the classroom or on the sidelines—have the potential to be automated with demonstrated technologies. Janitors and cleaners, for example, clean and monitor building premises. Cooks prepare and serve school food. Administrative assistants maintain inventory records and personnel information. The automation of these data-collection and processing activities may help to reduce the growth of the administrative expenses of education and to lower its cost without affecting its quality.
Looking aheadAs technology develops, robotics and machine learning will make greater inroads into activities that today have only a low technical potential for automation. New techniques, for example, are enabling safer and more enhanced physical collaboration between robots and humans in what are now considered unpredictable environments. These developments could enable the automation of more activities in sectors such as construction. Artificial intelligence can be used to design components in engineer-heavy sectors. One of the biggest technological breakthroughs would come if machines were to develop an understanding of natural language on par with median human performance—that is, if computers gained the ability to recognize the concepts in everyday communication between people. In retailing, such natural-language advances would increase the technical potential for automation from 53 percent of all labor time to 60 percent. In finance and insurance, the leap would be even greater, to 66 percent, from 43 percent. In healthcare, too, while we don’t believe currently demonstrated technologies could accomplish all of the activities needed to diagnose and treat patients, technology will become more capable over time. Robots may not be cleaning your teeth or teaching your children quite yet, but that doesn’t mean they won’t in the future. As stated at the outset, though, simply considering the technical potential for automation is not enough to assess how much of it will occur in particular activities. The actual level will reflect the interplay of the technical potential, the benefits and costs (or the business case), the supply-and-demand dynamics of labor, and various regulatory and social factors related to acceptability.
Top executives will first and foremost need to identify where automation could transform their own organizations and then put a plan in place to migrate to new business processes enabled by automation. A heat map of potential automation activities within companies can help to guide, identify, and prioritize the potential processes and activities that could be transformed. As we have noted, the key question will be where and how to unlock value, given the cost of replacing human labor with machines. The majority of the benefits may come not from reducing labor costs but from raising productivity through fewer errors, higher output, and improved quality, safety, and speed. It is never too early to prepare for the future. To get ready for automation’s advances tomorrow, executives must challenge themselves to understand the data and automation technologies on the horizon today. But more than data and technological savvy are required to capture value from automation. The greater challenges are the workforce and organizational changes that leaders will have to put in place as automation upends entire business processes, as well as the culture of organizations, which must learn to view automation as a reliable productivity lever. Senior leaders, for their part, will need to “let go” in ways that run counter to a century of organizational development.5 Understanding the activities that are most susceptible to automation from a technical perspective could provide a unique opportunity to rethink how workers engage with their jobs and how digital labor platforms can better connect individuals, teams, and projects.6 It could also inspire top managers to think about how many of their own activities could be better and more efficiently executed by machines, freeing up executive time to focus on the core competencies that no robot or algorithm can replace—as yet. Could a machine do your job? Find out on Tableau Public, where we analyzed more than 800 occupations to assess the extent to which they could be automated using existing technology. About the author(s)Michael Chui is a partner in McKinsey’s San Francisco office, where James Manyika is a senior partner; Mehdi Miremadi is a partner in the Chicago office. SA
Originally designed to give soldiers superhuman strength, exoskeletons are enabling heroic efforts to help patients re-learn to walk By Larry Greenemeier on October 13, 2016 
The Ekso GT is a combination of metal struts, sensors, straps and software that provides assistance based on a patient’s physical capabilities. Credit: EKSO BIONICS The prosthetic exoskeleton sits bolt upright in a chair, looking as if a robot has stood up, walked away and left part of itself behind. Roughly three minutes later Kevin Oldt is strapped into the metal frame and ready to stand. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, stretching his arms away from his body like a high diver about to take a plunge. Except Oldt holds a crutch in each hand, and when it’s go time he pushes upward with his powerful arms. The exoskeleton’s four electric motors kick in with a low whir, straightening Oldt’s lower body as he steadies himself with the crutches. Once Oldt is standing, a physical therapist checks the exoskeleton’s settings on a digital screen connected to its back support, and gives him the okay. Oldt takes a few steps, looks up and says, “I’m learning how to walk all over again.” When a 49-year-old man says that, one assumes he has been through something terrible. For Oldt that was a snowmobile accident more than 14 years ago that injured his spine and left him in a wheelchair. After more than a decade of physical therapy and hard work he is back on his feet several times a week, with the help of a robotic medical exoskeleton.
Mechanical exoskeletons have been in development for decades, but for most of that time the focus was on creating hydraulic-powered suits that soldiers could wear to carry heavy loads. These exist mostly in the form of prototypes as the U.S. government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and contractors try to figure out how to make them practical for military operations, in terms of cost and logistics. But Oldt’s exoskeleton—the Ekso GT, made by Ekso Bionics—and a variety of similar products from other companies have had much more impact in recent years on medical rehabilitation for spinal cord injury patients. In April the GT became the first exoskeleton approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use with stroke patients as well as patients suffering injuries as far up the spine as the cervical region (just below the neck), thanks to the device’s tall back plate. In March the FDA granted Parker Hannifin Corp. approval to sell its Indego robotic exoskeletons both to hospitals and directly to patients. Argo Medical Technologies—makers of the ReWalk exoskeleton—is reportedly the only other company that can sell directly to patients. In December 2015 the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs began covering the cost of the ReWalk exoskeleton for eligible paralyzed veterans. Standard care is very hands-on—two or three physical therapists often support and guide each step a patient takes. Often one of those therapists must manipulate the patient’s legs if the patient does not have the strength to move. That technique can be effective over time in helping patients regain some strength and mobility in their lower bodies, but measuring a patient’s progress is difficult and the work is very strenuous for therapists and patients alike. Another recent option has been assistive standing devices such as Hocoma’s Lokomat, which places a patient in an exoskeleton suspended by cables over a treadmill. Patients walk on the treadmill with the Lokomat exoskeleton’s help but do not have the untethered freedom that freestanding exoskeletons provide. Robotic rehabExoskeletons such as the one Oldt uses require a single therapist. They can be tuned to provide varying levels of support to meet different patients’ needs, and they measure a patient’s progress more precisely. This leads to more effective therapy sessions, says Tom Looby, Ekso Bionics’ president and CEO. During a patient’s first rehabilitation session a team of physical therapists working without an exoskeleton can normally get that person to take eight “quality” steps, meaning the patient is not trying to contort his or her body to compensate for a lack of strength or balance, Looby says. He claims the same patient in an Ekso GT can take 400 quality steps during that first session. Robotic “gait trainer” exoskeletons like these have become increasingly popular as a rehabilitation option, says Liza McHugh, a physical therapist at Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore. The GT enables individuals with paralysis to have long therapy sessions during which they are able step in a way that “we believe is good for restoring the nervous system after spinal cord injury,” McHugh says, adding that Kennedy Krieger has treated dozens of patients with the device since it arrived in August 2015. The latest exoskeletons allow therapists to measure and document statistics including the length and number of steps, how much power the suit’s motors are using to assist a patient, and how the patients shift their weight as they step. This allows therapists to measure progress more precisely than in the past, McHugh says, explaining that physical therapists have traditionally judged progress based largely on subjective observations.
Working out the kinksBut exoskeletons still have several drawbacks. In addition to being expensive—one can cost $70,000 to $150,000—and requiring a lot of special training for therapists, they are designed to be used only on surfaces that are solid, dry and level, McHugh says. A patient’s ability to walk in the clinic might not translate to wet, sandy or uneven terrain. The Ekso GT is adjustable for heights only between 1.5 and 1.8 meters, so “we are unable to use it with our pediatric population,” she adds. There is also a lack of concrete evidence that exoskeletons are more successful than conventional physical therapy at rehabilitating patients. Ekso is sponsoring a study that compares the progress of 160 spinal cord injury patients undergoing rehabilitation with the GT, with hands-on therapy and with no therapy, over 12 weeks. In August the company enrolled its first patient in its WISE, or “walking improvement for spinal cord injury with exoskeletons,” clinical trial. “Generally, all things being equal, those using exoskeletons are able to get more therapy—do more work—in a shorter amount of time,” says Dylan Edwards, WISE’s lead investigator and director of the Burke Medical Research Institute’s Laboratory for Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation and Human Motor Control in White Plains, N.Y. Edwards and his colleagues plan to evaluate whether robotic gait training can improve a patient’s walking speed—progress that would indicate that the brain, spinal cord, peripheral nerves and muscles are beginning to work together more effectively. The researchers will also evaluate patient pain and muscle spasticity, as well as economic factors such as number of physical therapists and staff required during training. “I’m trying to build an argument that we should embrace this technology in the physical therapy profession,” Edwards says.
Iron ManKevin Oldt is perhaps the best endorsement for exoskeletons thus far. He has been helping promote its technology for the past several years through demonstrations for the press and public. He says he relishes the relative freedom that wearing the Ekso GT gives him, even for a brief amount of time. And he claims that consistent use of the exoskeleton three days per week for the past few years has helped him regain some strength and motor control in his legs. Oldt acknowledges that the technology needed to help him walk again with minimal or no exoskeleton help is years away. Still, his experience has given him hope. “Sixteen years ago there was nothing,” he says. “This was just a comic book design—reading about Iron Man. Now it’s reality.” Hydraulic-powered, mind-controlled support suits aren’t just for superheroes. Soon you might have to wear one to work. Larry Greenemeier reports https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/robotic-exoskeletons-giving-and-gaining-support/ SA Exoskeleton defines a new class of warrior [Video]STAFFBy Larry Greenemeier on September 27, 2010 Technology has always defined how wars are fought, from swords to bows and arrows through the invention of gunpowder and the dawn of the aircraft and, now, to the presence of laser-guided unmanned aerial drones and bomb-diffusing robots. The U.S. military is now hoping the next decade will see a new class of warrior—a faster, stronger and more durable exoskeleton-empowered infantryman. 
Such an "iron man" was unveiled Monday at a demonstration of Raytheon Company's new Exoskeleton (XOS 2) at the company's research facility in Salt Lake City, Utah. XOS 2 was designed to be stronger and allow soldier wearing the exoskeleton to execute movements more fluidly than its XOS 1 predecessor, first unveiled in May 2008 (riding the publicity at the time that led up to the release of the Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.). The 95-kilogram XOS 2 is about 40 percent stronger than its 88-kilogram predecessor—the XOS-1 could lift about 16 kilograms with each arm, XOS-2 can lift about 23 kilograms. 
Whereas XOS 2 was designed to use half the amount of power as its predecessor, Raytheon is hoping to ultimately develop a version that uses 20 percent of the power as the XOS 1 to perform the same tasks. Reduced power consumption is key to making the exoskeleton practical to the military. The system is powered by an internal combustion engine, and its electrical systems are run by a wire that tethers the XOS 2 to a power source. Raytheon decided not to use batteries because the company's engineers didn't trust the safety of Lithium-ion batteries in close proximity to the person wearing the exoskeleton. The engine, tether and even a battery all pose potential limitations to the exoskeleton's range. (Marvel Comic's Iron Man also had issues with range when the character first appeared in 1963.) In order to increase the amount of time the XOS 2 can remain out in the field, Raytheon's engineers are examining both the exoskeleton's internal combustion engine and the impact of the device's high-pressure hydraulics on power consumption. Raytheon doesn't plan to take on the task of developing a better internal combustion engine because there are already many efforts underway to do this, according to the company. However, the company did develop its own hydraulic components and control strategies for the exoskeleton's movement and will continue to look for ways to optimize the efficient use of high-pressure hydraulic fluid. When Raytheon's exoskeletons first become available to the military (planned for 2015), they will also likely be tethered by power cables, followed three to five years later by untethered versions. The exoskeletons are expected to be used initially to help soldiers to carry heavier loads farther, whether they are performing combat or logistical operations. 
The exoskeleton has been under development since 2000 by a team led by Stephen Jacobsen at Raytheon Sarcos. Raytheon released a video [see below] Monday in which XOS 2 test engineer Rex Jameson breaks wood boards, lifts weights and does push ups without much exertion. XOS 2 is just the latest in a long history of efforts to develop exoskeletons for military, industrial and medical uses. In 2008, Japan's CYBERDYNE, Inc. introduced a sleek, white exoskeleton called the Hybrid Assistive Limb (HAL) under development to augment the body's own strength or do the work of ailing (or missing) limbs. The company (whose name is taken from the fictional company in the Terminator movies that created the deadly Skynet) claims to have signed an agreement with Denmark's Rehabilitation Center in Odense University Hospital to introduce HAL for clinical trials. Honda Motor Company and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (M.I.T.) Media Lab's Biomechatronics Group are likewise developing exoskeleton technology. WP
Top of Form Directory: tlairson -> ibtech tlairson -> The South China Sea Is the Future of Conflict tlairson -> Nyt amid Tension, China Blocks Crucial Exports to Japan By keith bradsher published: September 22, 2010 tlairson -> China Alters Its Strategy in Diplomatic Crisis With Japan By jane perlez tlairson -> The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol 11, Issue 21, No. 3, May 27, 2013. Much Ado over Small Islands: The Sino-Japanese Confrontation over Senkaku/Diaoyu tlairson -> Chapter 5 The Political Economy of Global Production and Exchange tlairson -> Chapter IX power, Wealth and Interdependence in an Era of Advanced Globalization tlairson -> Nyt india's Future Rests With the Markets By manu joseph published: March 27, 2013 tlairson -> Developmental State tlairson -> The Economist Singapore The Singapore exception To continue to flourish in its second half-century, South-East Asia’s miracle city-state will need to change its ways, argues Simon Long ibtech -> History of the Microprocessor and the Personal Computer, Part 2 Download 5.27 Mb. Share with your friends:
|