According to research by McKinsey, approximately 51 percent of all job-related activities in the U.S. can be replaced by robots. Another recent research conducted by PwC shows that 40 percent of jobs in the U.S., 31 percent in the UK, 35 percent in Germany and 21 percent of the jobs in Tokyo are vulnerable to replacement by robotics or other artificial intelligence (AI).

An imagined image of an all-robot workforce (Source: Digital News Asia)

The figures are daunting, but in practice, companies have yet to realize a fully-automated system that matches human labor. The truth is, humans need robots to take over mundane and physically demanding tasks, while people take on creative and innovative roles in the workplace. What is more likely is a shift in workplace dynamics, not a decrease in the overall number of jobs available. Today, most companies have automated their systems to varying degrees, and robots are continually being upgraded.

The Human-Robot Collaboration

Last year, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) published ISO/TS 15066, the safety standards for collaborative robots, or cobots that work in the same workplace as humans simultaneously. Before, it was common to find robots restrained in cages, or shut off while human workers loaded equipment onto the robots. Now, with enhanced sensors and diverse power settings, the safety risks of working with cobots are low. To add, many industries are embracing cobots over traditional industrial robots that work alone, because cobots are less expensive and require much less energy to operate.     

A welder gets help from a cobot

Not only are they a sustainable solution for companies, they increase workers’ productivity. According to Business World, Julie Shah and her team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology conducted a study looking at human-robot collaborations at a BMW plant. She found higher levels of productivity, efficiency and performance when humans and robots collaborate in comparison to all-human or all-robot systems. Collaboration also reduced human idle time by 85 percent. Many argue that this increase in productivity will lead to more business and eventually create more jobs that revolve around working with cobots.

The International Federation of Robotics (IFR) found that robot-driven productivity accounted for 10 percent of total GDP growth in OECD countries from 1993 to 2016, and that number will continue to grow in the coming years. The IFR predicts worldwide usage of industrial robots to reach 2.6 million by 2019. That’s one million more robots than in 2015.

Cobots are already making their way into factories and warehouses, and human workers are learning to work with their new counterparts.

Auto Industry

The automotive industry is one of the most common places to find cobots as major automakers were early movers in incorporating robotics into the workforce. That’s why it’s the perfect place to observe the changing dynamics of the workplace with cobots. At Ford’s new production facility, cobots work shoulder to shoulder with the production team in what they call a blended solution. Mostly, cobots have taken over repetitive tasks, physically demanding or dangerous tasks and freed up workers to focus on new innovations and creative projects. The facility runs 21 hours a day, 6 days a week thanks to around 550 cobots and robots.

Take a look at the new working dynamics at Ford below:

Food Industry

The food industry is another sector ripe for human-cobot collaboration, especially in the packaging sector. However, pizza restaurant Zume is changing the delivery pizza experience with automated technology. Cobots have taken over tasks such as spreading the sauce and lifting the pies into the oven. They will be implementing more robot technology to free up kitchen staff to work in their offices for business expansion. Another addition to come is a delivery truck equipped with 50 ovens that will start cooking the pizzas based on exactly calculated arrival times.

Watch the video below to find out more about what Zume is working on:

E-Commerce Industry   

Amazon is another early mover that introduced 15,000 cobots named Kiva to their warehouses in 2014. Two years prior in 2012, they bought Kiva Systems, a robotics company, for USD 775 million. Since then, the number of cobot employees has tripled.

Here’s how it works. Human employees scan items and place them into the shelf-like pods. Instantly, the scanned item is available to purchase online. Kiva’s software keeps track of where each item is so that it can easily be found at the picking station, where a human employee retrieves the product for shipping. Amazon managed to rapidly increase efficiency and speed up delivery times with Kiva. They continue to incorporate AI into their services, including their drone delivery system.

Take a look at Kiva in action in the video below:

Healthcare Industry

In the healthcare industry, cobots are being incorporated to assist doctors in surgery and lighten the burden of caregivers by taking over mundane tasks. Pairing cobots and their software technology with doctors has several benefits including minimized invasiveness, exactness and reduced mistakes in surgical procedures. To date, AI and cobots have allowed doctors to access new parts of the human body for surgery, and achieve breakthrough feats the way they examine, monitor and operate on patients.

Take a look at the most innovative cobots to date in the healthcare industry:

Steel Industry

POSCO is a leader in applying AI to the steel production systems. In 2015, they developed an exoskeleton cobot designed to enable workers strength beyond their own. The cobot is made of carbon fiber, aluminum and steel, and was first tested with Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering, at their facility in Okpo-dong. The cobot enabled shipyard workers to easily lift heavy pieces of metal weighing around 70 pounds, and researchers are working to allow workers to lift up to 200 pounds effortlessly.

Watch the video to find out more:

Aside from cobots, POSCO also incorporates AI and IoT into their smart factory, the first smart steel factory in the world, and continues to research and develop smart solutions to optimize the production processes.

Continued automation and the incorporation of cobots in the workplace is inevitable, and governments and institutions will have to provide resources for people to fill jobs tailored to working with cobots or those that cannot be replaced in any way by robots and AI. What’s ahead is figuring out how to think of cobots as coworkers that will only enhance one’s work. Also, companies have to figure out how to fully realize the potential for increased economic productivity through this type of cobot co-work that will lead to the development of more innovations, technology and ultimately, new business ventures.

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His beginnings at Gwangyang Steel Works

After entering the company, Kim Yong-hoon directly operated the hot-coil production line at the No. 2 Hot Rolling Mill’s operation cabin. At the time, all of the hot rolling equipment had to be operated manually, and Kim operated the speed drive which controlled tension during the rolling process and the reduction operation which determined the thickness of the sheets of steel and the actual rolling itself. Because everything was done manually, workers learned through experience, and new workers made lots of costly mistakes. Dealing with the aftermath of accidents was another physical burden on the workers.

Kim Yong-Hoon working at an operation board at the No. 2 Hot Rolling Mill in 1993

Kim recalls, “One time, a foreign guest visited the mills. He approached me for a handshake, but I couldn’t take my hands off of the operation board for even a second to shake his hand. That’s how focused you had to be to operate the mills back then. After 13 years of doing that, I knew we needed an automated system. That’s why in 2003, I willingly joined the Finishing Mill No Touch Operation Task Force Team (TFT).” The TFT worked to implement an automated system, but when they could not produce the desired results in a year, the team was dismantled.

Following the TFT, Kim Yong-Hoon worked in facility management and quality assurance. In order to produce high-quality products and minimize the number of defects, workers had to be flawless in facility management and operations. Again, Kim knew that the only way to achieve this was through automated operations, but it was too difficult to implement an automated system in an existing mill.  

A New TFT, A New Opportunity

As demand for high-strength steels surged in 2012, including for automotive steel sheets and API steel sheets (oil pipelines, oil-related structural steel products, etc.), POSCO decided to establish a TFT for the construction of the No. 4 Hot Rolling Mill at Gwangyang Steel Works.  Kim Yong-hoon, who was eager to apply automated systems and enhanced the quality of steel products, joined the TFT.

The Opening of the No. 4 Hot Rolling Mill at Gwangyang Steel Works in 2014

The construction of the No. 4 Hot Rolling Mill was special because it was the first mill to be built independently, without relying on Japanese firms that previously provided all the technology and equipment. In order to become technologically independent, the TFT had to research everything from scratch. That way, they could work in the automated operations systems from the design stage. In the end, the No. 4 Hot Rolling Mill opened in Gwangyang on October 30, 2014. The automation technology Kim and the TFT applied to the mill greatly increased the quality and quantity of production of high strength steels. However, Kim Yong-Hoon didn’t stop there and continued to enhance the mill’s technology.

FM Full-Length Hydraulic Oil Application Technology

Kim was the first in Korea to come up with the finishing mill (FM) full-length hydraulic oil application technology and applied it to the No. 4 Hot Rolling Mill. This new technology ensures the quality of high-strength steel surfaces in its finishing stage.

Traditionally, the rolling process for high-strength steels is more difficult because when the tough material passes through the rollers, it causes severe rolling fatigue and vibration due to high resistance. However, there is a way to eliminate rolling fatigue and vibration. By spraying oil on the rolling equipment, an oil film is formed between the roller and the rolled material. This oil film can transmit a large amount of force with less effort, meaning the steel will roll with less fatigue and vibration. While using hydraulic oil is common, what is different about this technology is that the oil can be applied to the full length of the rolled material, without worrying about slippage.

Kim Yong-Hoon checking on the equipment at the No. 4 Hot Rolling Mill

“I worked closely with the research department and equipment engineers to develop this technology. We ultimately came up with a way to remove the oil as soon as one roll is finished, before the next one begins to eliminate slippage. We got rid of the misconception that you can’t spray oil on the full length of the rolled material. As a result, we decreased the occurrence of scales from 0.83 percent in 2015 to 0.23 percent in the first half of 2017. The number of times irregular replacements occurred decreased from 20 times in 2015 to 7 times in 2017. We also expanded giga-grade steel production from 20 steel grades in 2015 to 30 steel grades in the first quarter of 2017. Due to the impressive results, the technology was chosen as a second-grade proposal this year.”

No Touch Operation Technology

Kim then went on to find implement the use of big data at the mill for increased efficiency and performance. He took the settings that the operators inputted manually for the operation equipment and turned it into big data in the form of an operations table, and continuously accumulated data for the automatic operations equipment program, or No Touch Operations.

“I vowed to implement the No Touch operations technology to the  No. 4 Hot Rolling Mill from its early construction stage. Because it was my first time, I made numerous mistakes. However, after a year of accumulating data on the shape of the rollers and on the final crown, we are now entering the stabilization phase. Even now, we are gathering significant data to increase the accuracy and efficiency of operations and we are updating the information whenever we have to apply it to a new material. The data table is really the key to the No. 4 Hot Rolling Mill’s success.”

Kim further applied the No Touch operation technology to speed operations to keep the tension of the rolled material constant and prevent the material from leaning to the left or right using loopers.  Kim says, “This process also took one year of research and failures to develop. The new hydraulic looper is 5 times faster than traditional motor loopers. The increased efficiency allowed us to go from needing 2 operations desks to only one and we allocated the remaining speed driver to quality improvement work. As a result, we have increased the added value of high strength steels produced at the No. 4 hot strip rolling mill.”

Equipped with all the new technology, the No. 4 Hot Rolling Mill surpassed the record production capacity of 3.5 million tons and reached 3.9 million tons in 2015 and 4.1 million tons in 2016. To add, the production share of POSCO’s World Premium products for the No. 4 Hot Rolling Mill increased from 44.3 percent in 2015 to 67.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2016 and reached 71.2 percent in the first quarter of 2017. The work rate also increased from 92.42 percent in 2015 to 96.02 percent this year and the quality nonconformity rate dropped from 1.67 percent to 0.64 percent in the same time span.

The Mindset of a Master

Kim Yong-Hoon was able to come up with numerous improvements to the operation systems at POSCO’s No. 4 Hot Rolling Mill because he views everything as a potential problem. He is always looking for ways to improve the production process and equipment, even if things appear to be working fine.

Kim’s goals for the future are straightforward. “We will do our best to make a sustainable POSCO by lowering the cost of products and raising the quality and production of high value-added steel.” His consciousness of potential problems and solutions is what lead to his achievements that include 18 proposals for representative registration and 11 proposals for joint participation. He also obtained a patent for his Variable Hot-Rolled Bite Cooler Header, which was awarded the A-grade by the POSCO Research Institute. This year, he is a POSCO Master of Korea, and he shows no signs of slowing down in his search for new technology and innovations to prevent accidents and improve POSCO’s products.

Automotive coated steel, one of POSCO’s World Premium Products (WPP), is a high-grade product that requires a high level of sophisticated technology. Only 20 out of 800 steel companies in the world can produce it at this time. Last year, POSCO sold approximately 9 million tons of automotive steel sheets, accounting for 10% of the global automotive steel sheet market.

The ‘Smart Solution for Coating Weight Control Based on AI‘ is a technology that drastically reduces the deviation of coating weight by using artificial intelligence to precisely control the Continuous Galvanizing Line (CGL), the primary technology used in automotive steel sheet production.

In particular, this technology uses an automated control technology that predicts the coating weight in real time and accurately meets the target coating weight by combining the coating weight production model of the artificial intelligence technique with the control model of the optimization technique.

A developer and worker are seen in the operating room monitoring the optimal coating weight predicted through artificial intelligence. POSCO succeeded in developing the ‘Smart Solution for Coating Weight Control Based on AI‘ through a joint industry-university effort, and applied it to POSCO 3CGL last January. With artificial intelligence, it is now possible to collect hundreds of different types of data in real time, as well as accurately predict and control target coating weights.

Coating weight control is a highly-sophisticated technology that keeps the thickness of the coating layer consistent even when operating conditions change at the request of automakers. When coating weight is controlled manually, quality deviates depending on the skill level of the worker, inevitably resulting in significant amounts of wasted zinc. However, the plating process is now automatically controlled by artificial intelligence, increasing the quality of POSCO’s automotive coated steel while decreasing production costs. These new automated processes have also helped to increase work efficiency and productivity with workers.

Since the inauguration of CEO Ohjoon Kwon in 2014, POSCO has been preparing to take the lead in smart solutions by integrating AI into its smart factories. Last June, POSCO Technical Research Laboratories identified the need for an automated coating weight control system and collected the relevant data after discussing with several departments. POSCO worked with Prof. Jon-seok Lee of the Department of Systems Management Engineering at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, Korea, to develop the artificial intelligence coating weight prediction model algorithm. Prof. Lee is an expert in statistics, data mining, machine learning and optimization methodologies. He collaborated with POSCO researchers to develop the coating weight prediction program after analysis of the plating process.

Starting in July 2016, a beta program was introduced for two months. After successful completion of the beta test, POSCO Technical Research Laboratories added an additional program to ensure quality control even under changing operating conditions.

The core AI technology that was applied to the coating weight control automation is a self-learning software that utilizes big data deep learning techniques. This method operates in real time allowing the AI program to stay up-to-date by analyzing hundreds of different types of data generated during the plating process. It can accurately predict and control coating weight through real-time, even if equipment has been replaced or operating conditions have changed.

The completed coating weight control automation solution was applied to POSCO’s 3CGL line in Gwangyang on a trial basis for approximately 2 months, enhancing accuracy and stability. Normally, when operating manually, deviations in the coating weight can extend up to 7g per m², but with POSCO’s AI-based technology, this number is reduced to 0.5g per m². After a technical verification process, the technology was incorporated into the 3CGL line on January 5.

To maintain its position as a global leader in automotive coated steel technology, POSCO is planning to apply this coating weight control automation solution to other CGLs at home and abroad, like the recently opened Thailand CGL. POSCO is also taking steps to introduce artificial intelligence technology to the manufacturing processes of other steel products while also continuing to build smart factories that can help POSCO continue to be a leader in the steel industry.

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