ROBOTICS
LOOKINGAHEAD
We must understand how exactly robots can help us — and facilities management offers a powerful microcosm of this challenge, says Stefano Bensi, General Manager at SoftBank Robotics EMEA.
American inventor George Devol is credited with creating Unimate, the world’s first electronic autonomous robot, in 1954. As we begin 2024, it’s important to consider how far robotics has come in those 69 years — in the sophistication of the technology that underpins it but also in the relationship that humans have with robots.
Today, an autonomous robot vacuuming a living room carpet or sweeping a train station concourse is a fairly common sight. Last autumn, Amazon unveiled a fleet of new drones and robots that the company claims will deliver commercial parcels in the UK this year. Even the NHS has shared plans to introduce robots across its services, including AI receptionists that will schedule patient appointments and ‘robot penguins’ designed to transport medicines to wards, savings patient’s hours of waiting and freeing up hospital beds sooner.
30 | TOMORROW’S FM
Still, there is work to be done to embed the technology into everyday life. In 2022, research by the UK Festival of Robotics found that nearly one in three adults (30%) would be open to trialling the use of robots for everyday tasks.
However, the same study revealed that many people struggle to identify robots correctly, with 20% mistakenly citing smart TVs and 39% citing smart speakers. Compare this with Japan, where attitudes to robots and advanced technology are far more open – we have seen this first- hand from the great work that our Japanese colleagues at SoftBank Robotics do.
What about in FM? While it pays to be clearer about what robotics technology is, we must also understand how exactly robots can help us — and facilities management offers a powerful microcosm of this challenge.
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