HEBI Robotics visits Garfield Jubilee, speaks of the birth of a new career: Robotics Technician
One topic that continues to appear in discussions is the misconception that jobs are being displaced due to robotics and automation. “There goes another job”, says one student when presented with the idea that a robot that can inspect pipes in a factory.
“Actually, that’s what we’re trying to change!”, says Chief Operating Officer of HEBI Robotics, Bob Raida, “Instead of having a human perform the same repetitive process of manually moving a scanning probe back and forth, we see a future where robots will do that unpleasant work. However, this will create new jobs – someone will need to build, deploy, operate, troubleshoot and maintain those robots.”
HEBI Robotics’ vision is to help industry create new jobs that will need technicians to read diagrams, follow guidelines on assembling a particular design, and perform the necessary tasks to get a robot up and running. Not to mention the maintenance that would be involved with the robots. There will be plenty of tasks needed to deploy these robots at a large scale. And a skilled workforce will need to be developed.
The idea that obtaining a career in Robotics and Advanced Manufacturing requires a four-year engineering degree from a well-known University will be a thing of the past. Thousands of jobs will be created within the next few years from this new industry, and students need to be prepared to join this workforce by building foundational skills.
HEBI Robotics is one of a series of companies providing site visits planned for the SMART-ER project, CMRA’s initiative (funded by the Pennsylvania Department of Labor through Partner4work) that is working to give students in underserved communities to getting exposed to the Knowledge, Skills, and Attributes (KSA) that technicians would need to work in Robotics and Advanced Manufacturing.
Bob Raida, of HEBI Robotics, visited the Garfield Jubilee, one of the community organizations that are a part of the SMART-ER project where students are going through the Electrical Foundations micro-certification courses CMRA is creating to teach foundation skills needed of Robotics Technicians.
To learn more about SMART-ER you can go to our Research area. You can also learn about the parent project, SMART. You can also email us at cmra@nrec.ri.cmu.edu for more information about either of these projects.
