A human operator working with two collaborative robots at a water pump disassembly station.
Duc Pham, chance professor of engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Birmingham
I recently accompanied two teams from our Autonomous Remanufacturing Laboratory on an excursion to a local remanufacturing company. Readers of this column may recall my having mentioned our Autonomous Remanufacturing (AutoReman) programme, sponsored by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) (grant number: EPN0185241). Our larger team focuses on this. The smaller team is working with other industrial partners on an Innovate UK-funded project named Autonomous remanufacturing of complex products (ARCP) (project reference: 103667).
Like the majority of remanufacturers, our host was an SME. However, in contrast to some of the dingy, dated and disorganised remanufacturing plants we had seen elsewhere, theirs was clean, tidy, light, airy, well-organised and with a modern appearance. The detailed presentation given by the company at the start of our visit revealed a visionary organisation, having a robust long-term strategy and embracing contemporary management techniques. It is little surprise that despite being in a highly competitive market, the company remains successful after five decades of trading.
We were immensely appreciative of the chance to visit the company and the time our host spent with us. The event gave the younger members of our party, who had not had direct experience of a real remanufacturing environment, the first opportunity to see all the processes about which they had only read. They were able to observe how and where cores were stored, washed and disassembled, the components were deep cleaned, and the product was reassembled and tested. They could talk to professionals in the remanufacturing industry and receive expert comments and advice.
In another way, the visit was an eye-opener for many of us. Except for the cleaning and testing stations, there was little automation to be found. The reason was quite simple—we experienced first-hand how fast and adaptable human operators are. There is little hope that any robot, now or in the near future, could economically match the human operator’s speed, dexterity and ability to cope with the degree of variability and uncertainty that characterises remanufacturing.
So, will autonomous remanufacturing become a reality? The history of technology has taught us that what seems impossible today could be commonplace sometime in the future. This is particularly true in the fields of artificial intelligence and information engineering. Given the falling prices and rising capabilities of robots, we imagine it will one day be economical to use them to replace humans in remanufacturing jobs. However, when that day will be, it is hard to tell. For now, autonomous remanufacturing remains a technological dream.
With the realisation of autonomous remanufacturing being uncertain, might our research have been chasing a mirage? Fortunately, our aim is not to deliver a fully autonomous remanufacturing solution, since the loss of people’s employment would be unacceptable to us. Instead, we are focusing on semi-autonomous remanufacturing, which is humans and robots working together. Our pragmatic and achievable solution would involve complementing the speed, dexterity and cognitive abilities of humans with the precision, strength and stamina of robots. This way, we would use robots ethically and optimally, allowing them to assist humans and augment their capabilities.
www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/mechanical-engineering/index.aspx