Robots and humans, hand in hand, working on the assembly line of the Ford Fiesta

Up to six UR10 robots work at Ford’s German plant in Cologne, Ford, in direct collaboration with workers

The threat of machines taking over jobs traditionally assigned to humans is one of society’s recurring concerns since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

Over time, it has been shown that, although some jobs have been eliminated or suppressed in favour of the use of automated machinery, others have remained and, indeed, the supervision or involvement of people has become indispensable.

Others, meanwhile, rely on coordinated interaction between machines and human beings.

The tasks of the robots and the functions of the humans

This is what happens on the assembly line of the Ford Fiesta, a work line located at the German headquarters of Ford, in Cologne, where the harmony between machinery and people shows that coordinated work raises the quality of the final product.

https://youtu.be/I8nMKH3y_1I

Known as cobots, these collaborative robots work alongside Ford staff. The purpose of this collaboration is to achieve an optimal final result, a combination of automated work and human effort.

The six cobots perform a choreography, or task synchronisation, that allows each of them to complete its assigned task in just 35 seconds, during which they are capable of fully sanding the chassis surface of the units being assembled for the Ford Fiesta model.

These UR10 robots do not eliminate the work of the operators; instead, tasks that could cause stress associated with repetitive cutting work are delegated to the machines, while workers at the Cologne plant take on other duties, such as supervising the final result of the cobots’ work.

https://youtu.be/6RkZ_aZGpto

This pioneering project at Ford is under study for export to other workplaces of the American-origin company. Thus, in Europe, the plants located in Spain, specifically the one in Valencia, and the one in Romania, in Craiova, where the new Ford Puma is assembled, are the next to receive the cobots.