Automation in Manufacturing: Are There Any Cons?

Automation and manufacturing have become inseparable. The sector was one of the first to embrace robotics and automation adoption among manufacturers continues to soar. However, despite this widespread optimism about the technology’s potential, it has some downsides.

The World Economic Forum predicts machines will perform as much work as humans by 2025. As that trend continues and companies invest more in automation, they should consider the technology’s cons to implement it more effectively. Here are five of the most significant of these disadvantages.

1. Job Displacement

The most worrying of manufacturing automation’s downsides is its impact on job displacement. Companies like Amazon have created more jobs through robotics than they’ve eliminated and experts predict automation will create more jobs than it takes. However, it’s essential to realize that these are long-term gains. In the short term, automation often harms employment and wages.

Adding one robot in an area reduces employment by roughly six workers and average wages fall by 0.77%. Other jobs do emerge, but not immediately and often in other areas. Rapid automation may leave many people out of a job, despite creating a net gain in the long run.

The jobs automation creates also require an entirely different skill set than those it takes. That disconnect means the workers robots displace may not necessarily be able to take the positions they open.

2. High Costs

Another potential drawback of automation in manufacturing is its high upfront costs. Robots have a positive long-term financial impact thanks to their higher productivity and lower ongoing costs, but they carry significant price tags. That initial expense can be a challenge for some manufacturers.

Even if automation eventually produces a positive return on investment, achieving that ROI can take a long time. Considering that timeline, smaller operations with tighter operating margins may be unable to justify the immediate expense. Similarly, manufacturers may dig themselves into ta deep financial pit by investing too much in automation all at once.

Depending on their complexity and customization, industrial robots cost thousands of dollars per unit and manufacturers often need to triple their investment budget to accommodate additional costs. That’s a significant investment, so manufacturers must carefully consider if and how they can afford these upgrades.

3. Lack of Flexibility

Many manufacturing robots are also inflexible. Automation excels at repetitive, predictable tasks, but because they operate on the assumption that all other factors remain consistent, any deviation can disrupt them.

Manufacturers can reprogram bots or set them up differently to account for changing needs. However, this takes time, leading to a drop in productivity while switching to the new system. This disruption can make adapting efficiently to fast-moving shifts in consumer trends or supply chain considerations challenging.

The past few years have made it evident that manufacturers must be able to adapt to remain resilient in the face of rising global pressures. There were more than 11,000 global supply chain disruptions in 2021 alone, highlighting the need for flexibility. If manufacturers rely too heavily on robotics, they may not be able to deliver that adaptability.

4. More Impactful Errors

This lack of flexibility means automated systems can create disruptive ripple effects if something goes wrong. One of manufacturing automation’s biggest benefits is the reduction of human error. However, if an error does occur, it’ll be more impactful in an automated production line than in a manual one.

Consider if a robot experienced a software glitch or had a component fall out of alignment, causing it to place parts on a product improperly. Because each robot down the line will follow the same motions as they normally would, these errors would cause further mistakes and become harder to fix as products go through production. Robots’ high speeds also mean this could result in hundreds of defects in a matter of seconds.

Industrial waste accounts for 50% of all waste generation globally, so these mistakes are concerning. While they may be less likely than human error, their impact is far greater.

5. Safety Concerns

Improper automation implementation can also create safety issues. In most cases, automation makes workplaces safer because it creates distance between workers and dangerous machines or risky workflows. However, mobile robotics could endanger employees if something goes wrong.

Navigating through open spaces isn’t easy for computers — nor is recognizing all obstacles, as self-driving car accidents highlight. While these incidents are relatively rare, a mobile robot could fail to recognize a worker and run into them. If that happens, manufacturers face a tricky liability situation.

It’s unclear who’s responsible for a safety incident involving an autonomous robot. The bot itself is just a machine, so it can’t be liable, but does that mean the company employing it is responsible or the manufacturer that built the robot? What if the employee who got injured wasn’t following safety protocols? These unclear questions could create complicated legal scenarios.

How Manufacturers Can Manage These Downsides

These potential disadvantages should temper manufacturers’ expectations about automation. However, they don’t necessarily mean automation isn’t a good thing. Instead of avoiding automation altogether, manufacturers should consider these downsides to inform more careful, responsible implementation.

The heart of many of these issues is over-automation is the real danger, not automation itself. Manufacturers can manage flexibility and cost-related issues by seeing robots as a complement to their human workforce rather than a replacement. Slow, methodical automation adoption while assigning new, more managerial responsibilities to human employees will help make the most of this technology.

Similarly, manufacturers should consider how increased automation impacts the employee skills they need. Providing workers with reskilling and upskilling opportunities can help offset job displacement while enabling more effective automation usage. Future workers must understand and manage robots, and robots need skilled workers who know where best to apply them. Upskilling addresses both sides of the issue.

Manufacturers should also recognize effective automation relies on thoughtful implementation. Businesses should carefully analyze what could go wrong and clean any data going into robotic systems to avoid errors as much as possible. Similarly, they should automate slowly — one task at a time — carefully recording what goes well and what needs improvement to inform future automation initiatives.

Every Technology Has Ups and Downs

Automation is just a tool. As such, how positive or negative its impact depends on how companies use it. Achieving automation’s full potential requires understanding its potential downsides so businesses can address them.

If manufacturers recognize the cons of automation, they can temper their expectations and adjust their automation strategies accordingly. Doing that will ensure better ROIs, increased safety, higher accuracy and a fairer impact on the workforce.