Ford utilizes co-bots with its factory workers at Cologne plant in Germany. These collaborative robots aren’t replacing their human counterparts, instead, they’re in the workplace side by side with these 4,000 factory workers.
At Ford’s factory in Cologne, Germany, a new kind of robot is sitting by the assembly line helping manufacture the legendary automaker’s cars. But these collaborative robots, or co-bots, aren’t replacing their human counterparts at this Ford Fiesta plant. Instead, they’re working side by side with 4,000 Ford factory workers, and not for them.
“The workforce is really helping us define how they can contribute more by using the collaborative robots to do some of the more mundane, simple, heavy-exertion tasks, which in turn allows them to use more of their creativity and their minds to take us to the next level, ” said Bruce Hettle, vice president of manufacturing and labor affairs at Ford.
