People say that in the future robotics will

influence our life in all aspects, but we say:

that future is now!

RoboRobotics is no longer relegated to

businesses but it’s entering in our lives.

During our research we have found robots

in factories helping workers, robots

replacing doctors in surgery, drones

fighting on battlefields and robots that

help people live better: all this is already

happening, right nohappening, right now.

Thanks to the development of new

technologies such as cloud computing,

Artificial Intelligence, and innovation in the

field of sensors, in recent years robotics has

been developing very rapidly.

Businesses are adopting these

technologies not only in production

processes, but also in the creation of

robots for the retail market.

InIn the field of product innovation we have

considered Leka, an interactive robot that

helps children suffering from autism, or

even AirSelfie, a compact mini drone that

lets you take midair selfies, and these are

just a few examples of innovation

technologies that we found during our

researesearch.

Developments in this field will soon lead to

robots resembling humans that can help

physically disabled people, or replace man

in laboured tasks.

AsAs regards the process innovation we have

seen how PAL (Panel Assembly Line) is able

to increase the production rate of Boeing’s

737 line by 33% riveting the wings of the

airplane without the aid of human labor,

and also Amazon, implements KIVA robots

to facilitate the logistics, from the arrival of

goodsgoods in stock, up to product packaging of

the orders that will be delivered to

customers' homes.

The use of robotics is bringing enormous

changes, not only in the job market but

also in the social sphere. People wonder

whether robots will replace human labor,

and what will be the consequences for

those individuals who risks to be replaced,

and businesses are worried about

implementaimplementation time of these new

technologies, and about the payback

period of those investments.

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ROBOTICS?THAT’S WHAT WE’VE LEARNED ABOUT!

We were fascinated by the process

innovations in the field of robotics, and

how they are able to improve not only the

organization, but also the profitability and

productivity of the company.

For these reasons we decided to collect

information about these processes,

interviewing a company of our territory,

which has recently introduced robots in its

line, Costan.

Today Costan has 19 robots allocated in

this way:

• 5 robotic bending islands (9 robots);

• 2 islands for special handling (2 robots);

• 1 island for serpentine drafting of

Mobile (1 robot);

• 1 robotic assembly line for refrigerator

doors (7 robots).

MeMetti could not give us specifics

informations concerning the cost incurred

to realize this investment, but confirmed

that was very consistent. Despite the large

amount of capital invested, Metti told us

that it turned out to be a successful

operation, which has brought an economic return in few yearsreturn in few years.

Costan caseCostanCostan was founded in 1946, when

brothers Mario and Alberto Costan built

the first workshop to produce coldrooms

and refrigerated cabinets. At the end of the

80’s Costan joined the EPTA Group, a

leading supplier of equipment for

commercial refrigeration, which still

reprepresents a historic brand of product. This

company has today more than 900 employees and a plant located in Limana

(Belluno) of 69,000 m² in continuous

expansion.

In recent years, the company has decided

to introduce robotics in some stages of its

production process, which is why we asked

Ivano Metti (Method and Technology

officer) to give us some information about

the reasons that led to that investment.

Automated systems were first being

employed to deal with standardized processes and because they allow to have

a fixed setup time, and therefore

predictable, together with constant realization rates; secondly, they have

allowed to reduce human intake of heavy

andand repetitive tasks that presented a high

risk of accidents.

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We were curious to know what had been

the impact related to the replacement of

men with robots, and honestly we were

prevented by the fact that this investment

would lead to the reduction of human

labor; rather, we were proved wrong by

Metti that said instead: "We increased

prproduction capacity so it was not

necessary to lay-off staff, and having

assigned the Robot to heavy machining,

the department has instead appreciated

the introduction of these

anthropomorphic”. There was no negative

impact from this investment, even if the

intintroduction of these automata

necessitated additional spending to create

skilled labor. At last, Metti confirms us that

Costan will implement new investments in

robotics in the next future.

Our conclusions

Since we started to introduce automata in

the production processes, there was often

contrast between robots and manual labor

force, it was thought that automata would

have replaced human labor.

FFrom our interview we have instead

learned that human labor was not removed

by robots, but the investment made

necessary retrained worker in more

specialized employement, the formation

of these knowledge workers, have led to

an increased internal knowledge

enterprise.enterprise.

These investments have also enabled

Costan to improve the manufacturing

processes, through efficiency gains. The

company we have analyzed has drawn

positive experience from robotics, and we

believe that these innovations will be

important in the future for the success of

many businesses. many businesses.

The critical factor is to know how to take

these opportunities, which are already

available now, because as we said

previously: the future is already here!

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