One maintenance department can maintain dozens of robots if we’re talking about a medium+ size facility.
One of the major benefits of industrial robots are that they can operate 24/7. That means 24/7 staffing, and on call support.
One single tech will not be able to do that effectively unless that is literally their only responsibility.
Maintenance specialists like that are very common budget cuts, so they often have to do 2 or 3 additional jobs.
Now the robots are left with new people who are all learning on the fly. They often have no robotics experience but are the only people who accept the low wages typically offered. Now the company needs several electrical engineers to deal with the automation, and process engineers to try and “optimize” everything so it’s easier for the remaining workforce.
All of that is very expensive. It tends to be cheaper to just staff maintenance properly.
R0ADHAU5 t1_ivr7xh7 wrote
Reply to comment by Sweet_Baby_Cheezus in A study found that people perceive that robots are replacing human jobs at a greater rate than they actually are. Only 14% of workers say they’ve had their job replaced by a robot. Workers who had been supplanted by a robot estimated that 47% of all jobs have been lost to robots. by Brave_Cycle_8745
One maintenance department can maintain dozens of robots if we’re talking about a medium+ size facility.
One of the major benefits of industrial robots are that they can operate 24/7. That means 24/7 staffing, and on call support.
One single tech will not be able to do that effectively unless that is literally their only responsibility.
Maintenance specialists like that are very common budget cuts, so they often have to do 2 or 3 additional jobs.
Now the robots are left with new people who are all learning on the fly. They often have no robotics experience but are the only people who accept the low wages typically offered. Now the company needs several electrical engineers to deal with the automation, and process engineers to try and “optimize” everything so it’s easier for the remaining workforce.
All of that is very expensive. It tends to be cheaper to just staff maintenance properly.