The complexity of introducing robotics: lessons drawn from an industrial experience ∗

Abstract

Today, the robot and robotics are the subject of countless publications. However, it is difficult to obtain a clear picture of reality when some praise the robot as the indispensable technological tool of the year 2000, and others attack it as a cause of unemployment and of other ills. Regardless of who is right and of examples of faultless applications such as those seen in the automobile industry, the development of robotics is much less rapid than experts had anticipated early in the 1980s. What are the reasons for this slowdown? Prohibitive costs, technological difficulties or organizational obstacles? The present paper covers the history of the implementation of a robotic installation in the steel industry in France (the firm where the actual study was conducted required anonymity). The authors attempt to analyse the positive, as well as the negative comments gleaned from the participants at the plant. Most of the difficulties encountered are related to the technological modifications required in the plant to install the robot and its peripheral equipment, as well as to labour and organizational changes which affected those most directly involved. This particular experience serves to provide lessons of general importance concerning the dos and the don'ts of a project of robotization (Besson 1983, Guest 1984).

Notes

Translated and adapted from ‘Robot en rodage: les enseignements d'une peri-robotique retive&’ (‘The Problems of Initiating a Plant to the First Robot and its Peripheral Equipment’) (Paris: Ecole National Superieure des Mines de Paris (ENSMP), December 1985).