- With social distancing in place and limited staff in the office, decreased dependency on the human workforce is vital to businesses.
- Top five repetitive positions to be replaced by robots are drivers, cleaners, waiters, receptionist and order takers, Experthubglobal says.
- Businesses are utilising emerging technologies to improve process efficiencies, transform business operations and enhance customer experience.
Dubai: Service robots have been increasingly sharing our workplaces and this is gaining momentum due to Covid-19 as part of social distancing.
These service robots perform specific tasks that assist humans outside of industrial automation applications, such as customer service, cleaning, temperature check, etc.
Many hospitals, schools and airports across the globe have installed disinfection robots since the outbreak of the pandemic.
According to the International Federation of Robotics, out of the almost one million robots expected to be sold for enterprise use in 2020, more than just over half of them will be professional service robots.
“Covid-19 has given an unexpected boost to automation to help reduce contact between humans and make the workplaces safer,” Jaya Bhatia, CEO, Advisor, and Founder of Experthubglobal.com, distributor for Sanbot and Mitra humanoid robots in the UAE, Middle East and Canada, told TechChannel News.
She said that the Android robots can do 16 odd jobs such as receptionist, cashier, HR executive, waiter, happiness ambassador and take orders, to name a few, very efficiently.
Currently, she said that over half a million people are using Sandbot globally but in the UAE, it is still in hundreds.
“In the next three years, half a million repetitive or boring jobs will be replaced by robots and humans will have to promote themselves to more intelligent and calculative jobs such as decision making, troubleshooting and problem-solving where they cannot be replaced by robots,” she said.
Repetitive tasks such as printing offline, greeting a visitor or offering tea or coffee, checking of temperature can be handled by robots and they are well efficient in doing that, she said.
A recent report by McKinsey & Co found that jobs most at risk from the pandemic were also those likely to be automated in the next few years such as food services, customer service and sales and building occupations.
Boosting efficiency
In the last 10 years, Bhatia said that half a million jobs have been replaced by robots such as call centre, replaced by chatbots, and email services.
She expects that the top five repetitive positions to be replaced by robots are drivers, cleaners, waiters, receptionist and order takers.
“In the HR space, 35-40 per cent will be automated while 60 per cent of the businesses will be automated,” she said.
Gartner predicts that by 2025, at least two of the top 10 global retailers will establish robot resource organisations to manage non-human workers.
Bhatia said that the robots they are bringing to the market are functional robots that can do a specific job with limited AI.
Right now, with social distancing in place and limited staff in the office, she said that decreased dependency on a human workforce is vital to businesses.
“It is a necessary and a desire at the moment to run the office smoothly and to be safe. Even before Covid, there was a demand but it has accelerated during Covid. Businesses are utilising emerging technologies, including robotics, to improve process efficiencies, transform business operations and enhance customer experience,” she said.
Championship for developers
According to MarketsandMarkets, the service robotics market is projected to grow from $37 billion in 2020 to $102.5 billion by 2025.
Experthubglobal has sold more than 500 robots in the region in the last quarter.
The price of a robot starts from $4,000 and can go up to $75,000.
“The life of a robot is about three years. The companies offer one year warranty and two years of maintenance. Having said that, it can be used for more than that but companies come out with a newer version of hardware and software,” Bhatia said.
To give a boost to the developers, Experthubglobal is launching the Robotics Developers Championship in the UAE.
Bhatia said that developers will be briefed on the development protocols, and given test projects to choose from to submit their projects, for analysis. Winner will be acknowledged, with “Master Sanbot Developer”, “Innovative Sanbot Developer” and “Champion Sanbot Developer”.
“The challenge is to look at identifying some key transformative entries that will take robotics to the next level. The championship is free. The idea is to create more developers in this market and to support the UAE Government’s vision,” she said.