The new theme on manufacturing floor appears to be "I, Robot."
It's hard to come up with any other conclusion after the latest data from the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), which recently published its final numbers for adoption of industrial robots across the globe in 2015.
As can be seen in the chart below, the worldwide deployments of industrial robots achieved a new record of 248,000 units last year. That represents a rise of 12% compared to the previous year's total of 221,000 units, and is a continuation of a global automation boom that started in the wake of the financial crisis in 2009. The sales figures for industrial robots have increased almost four-fold since the 60,000 units sold that year.
There is no end in sight to this growth trajectory: By 2018, some 2.3 million units will be working on factory floors, more than twice as many as the 1.0 million in 2009.
In terms of regions, robot sales were up 10% to 50,000 units in Europe in 2015, up 17% to 37,000 units in the US, and up 16% to 156,000 units in Asia.
Some still argue this will not have much of an impact on overall jobs numbers. We are not quite so optimistic here at SCDigest.
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