In the modern ecosystem, renting a robot has become cheaper than recruiting a full-time employee

Robotic advancement has reduced human effort a lot. Industries are increasingly depending on robots to enhance their production capacity. Robotic Dogs are used for patrolling by the defence forces. They have found their way into our household to do daily chores like trimming grass and cleaning.
Using robots, we are enhancing our productivity and optimising the process of development. Tesla cars can drive themselves on the road, Drones monitor the border autonomously with very few inputs required and all this can be achieved with the help of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.

What is a Robot?

Robots are basically machines that are capable of performing of complex series of repetitive actions, resembling human behaviour, automatically, through machine learning, the components of which are Computer programming and Artificial Intelligence. Robots have some predefined commands and responses based on the senses received from their environment. They work by simulation received from humans (such as Alexa and Siri), on their own (automated) without any supervision (self-driving cars, drones) and/or in certain specialized specific tasks where their actions and responses are very limited (industrial robots like doing the tasks of lifting, folding, closing etc.).

Rented robots as a popular choice

With the progress made in Technologies and Computer Programs, robots are no longer restricted to only the electronic or mechanical sectors, rather are becoming more demanding in these by all sectors, like that of business, hospitals etc. as installation of Robots are becoming easier and cheaper. Robots are most often rented instead of purchasing to do these tasks augment the workforce as a whole.

Why Rent a robot?

Being higher in cost, robots become an unattainable means by the small business firms and start-up companies. That's where renting or leasing out a robot from companies such as Polar Manufacturing in Chicago and Formic. A rented robot also earns wages for its labour per hour, however, the equivalent cost of human labour to that of a rented robot is nearly half the cost of hiring a full-time human employee. This cost-effective nature of rented robots is making them a wiser choice thus.

Due to the pandemic leading to a shortage of efficient workers, anything that covers up the vacancy is very much beneficial for the optimisation and productivity of the companies and industries. The automation of the robot as an employee is slowly encroaching even in small business firms. With the ease offered due to Automation in addition to other cost-effective characteristics, the demand for a full-time employee is diminishing day by day. Advancement in AI and automation is thus adversely jeopardizing the job of a human labour/employee.

Benefits of renting a robot:

Some of the major advantages of renting a robot over a full-time, employed workforce are:

Cost-effective– although involves high cost at the beginning, a robot can be more cost-effective than a full-time employee. Due to its huge demand and lack of adequate human workers, many industries are adopting more automation workforce but some small business firms still cannot afford them and hence take the robots on lease or rent them at nearly half the cost of human labour.

Polar Manufacturing in Chicago leased one such robot, to lift pieces of metal onto a press. The cost of which is $8 an hour, whereas it is $15 an hour for a human worker, according to a recent article on Wired. Many companies are even replacing human labour with automation, which reduces the costs incurred due to the salary of the employees.

Robots can work 24*7: humans have a limit to their labour. It is impossible for a human to work day and night continuously without any break as fatigue, exhaustion and hunger set it. The good thing about robots is that they can offer full-time work without any such complaints of fatigue or hunger. This way the working hours and productivity are increased and the cost for paying overtime is reduced significantly.

Improved optimization: as the robots do not easily wear out, their work has the same amount of persistence and efficiency overall, leading to optimum utilisation of the resources without much depreciation cost involved, as the robots are rented.

Increase in workforce efficiency: due to the substitution of the full-time human employee with the rented robots, the workers can put their efforts into much more difficult arenas free from the repetitive assembly line tasks. This, on one hand, reduces the hiring cost of more employees and on the other hand, the human workers are put to creative and constructive works which in turn increases the overall productivity of the industries. As a result, the workforce is augmented with the increase in their efficiency as well as profit.

Automation used to augment the workforce is seemingly rising and will continue to do for a long time in the coming decades. Renting robots will be economical for the companies as well as the economy as a whole. However, this may not come as an advantage but rather a boon for the human workers as they may and start losing their jobs and the rate of unemployment of an economy, therefore, may increase.