Canadian Plastics: Will COVID-19 create a boom in factory automation?
by Canadian Plastics
One of the few bright spots to emerge during the COVID-19 pandemic is industrial automation, which is helping to maintain social distancing between plant floor workers
PHOTO: Canadian Plastics/Adobe Stock
Economic disruptions tend to highlight and accelerate trends that were already underway. The COVID-19 pandemic is definitely proving more disruptive than a traditional recession – and maybe even the Great Depression – but in this respect it might not be different from other downturns. If so, the trend of manufacturers, plastics processors among them, using robotic automation to replace human workers in jobs that are dull, dirty, and dangerous – known in the industry as “the three Ds” – might not only accelerate, but become key planks in disaster contingency and supply chain planning going forward.
Read more from Canadian Plastics, one of Canadian Manufacturing‘s sister publications.
