Industrial robots are becoming more affordable for small and midsize companies, especially in situations where the companies can rent the machinery. The robots perform the repetitive, physically breaking work, allowing people to remain healthier and perform more valuable work.
Buying a robot could cost as much as $500,000, and Mr. Calleja wasn’t even confident that one would work. Instead, he rented a robot from Formic, a Woodridge, Ill., firm that takes care of installation, training, programming and repairs. It costs about $23 an hour, roughly the same as a human.
“We have very low turnover because we try to make jobs easier,” Mr. Calleja said of the company, which is outside Detroit. “We are a small facility, but we produce about 65,000 pounds of food a day.” Stacking it was “a backbreaking job,” he said.
In an era when manufacturers consistently list attracting and retaining workers as a top challenge, companies are automating some of the worst jobs in their plants as a worker retention strategy.