The Akron Legal News

Automation continues to grow at local manufacturers

BRANDON KLEIN
Special to the Legal News
Published: October 19, 2017

If robots are indeed taking over the workplace, they've apparently found a home in Ohio.

Ohio had the second largest amount of industrial robots in 2015, according to the Brookings Metropolitan Policy program. The state had 20,415 robots, about 8.7 percent of the nation's total of 244,305.

"While industrial robots are by no means everywhere, they are clustered heavily in a short list of Midwestern and Southern manufacturing states, especially the upper Midwest," said Mark Muro, senior fellow and policy director at the Brookings Metro program.

For example, last month Honda of America Manufacturing Inc. announced a $220 million investment at its Marysville auto plant for the 10th generation of the automaker's popular Accord. That included $165 million for a weld department with 342 welding robots.

About a week later, the Pansonic Factory Solutions Company of America opened a technical center for arc and laser welding technologies in Hilliard.

The company is a supplier of electronic assembly equipment, robotic welding, software and technical support.

Ohio's use of industrial robots has increased by 20 percent since 2010. Cincinnati, Cleveland and Columbus all made the top 15 of 382 metropolitan areas in the concentration of industrial robots in 2015.

Cincinnati came in at No. 12 with 2,584, a 21-percent increase from 2010, while Cleveland was No. 13 with 2,530, a 17-percent increase from the same year.

Columbus increased by 15 percent to 2,465 industrial robots from 2010 to 2015. The city ranked 15th, with nearly three robots per 1,000 workers.

Since 2000, manufacturing production in the U.S. has risen more than 10 percent in inflation-adjusted terms, while its employment has declined by almost 5.5 million jobs, according to a June study from Ball State University Center for Business and Economic Research.

But the study also found other non-manufacturing jobs were at risk of automation as well.

The top 10 were data entry keyers, mathematical science occupations, telemarketers, insurance underwriters, mathematical technicians, seamstresses, tax preparers, machine operators, library technicians and watch repairers.

The study also found that the average job in Franklin County was at 53 percent risk of automation compared with Holmes County, the Ohio county most at risk of automation, at 63 percent.

"We wish to reiterate that these are not predictions of job losses, but rather representations of the relative risk to automation and trade-related job losses that may occur in the coming years," the BSU study stated.

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