The rise of robots is no longer mere science fiction, with robotics and artificial intelligence infiltrating

nearly every area of our lives. From self-serve checkouts in supermarkets to screening legal documents,
robots are now working more efficiently and economically than we do in some workplaces. So it's no
surprise that a McKinsey report from 2017 predicts that robots will take over 800 million jobs by 2030,
which would affect one-fifth of the global workforce. But what do robots in the workplace actually look
like?

Shimizu Corporation

Continued labour shortages led Japanese construction company Shimizu to invest in robots. Since 2015
the company has placed 20 billion yen ($180.7m/£140.3m) into the development of construction robots
such as Robo-Welder (pictured) and Robo-Buddy, which inserts hanger bolts and installs ceiling boards.
In fact, the global market for construction robots is set to double to $420 million (£326m) by 2025, up
from $200m (£155m) in 2017, according to QY Research.

DHL

DHL started to use collaborative robots in 2016. The logistics leviathan trialled two Rethink Robotics
cobots called Baxter and Sawyer at its warehouses in the US. The smart cobots perform packing, kitting
and pre-retail tasks alongside their human colleagues. And the robots are here to stay – in November
2018, DHL announced a $300 million (£233m) investment in robots in its warehouses.

CIG

Cambridge Industries Group (CIG) is one of China's leading suppliers of telecoms equipment. Big on
automation, the Shanghai-based firm has replaced most of its workforce with robots, so the company
now only has 700 workers. CIG plans to have a 90% automated workforce soon, eventually creating
energy-efficient 'dark factories' where robots toil away in pitch-black darkness.

CaliBurger

Kitchen robots are starting to pack a punch with Miso Robotics launching the world’s first autonomous
kitchen assistant – Flippy. A robot burger flipper, it has a jointed, bionic arm with a spatula at the end,
and is armed with thermal vision so that it can see whether a burger is thoroughly cooked. It can even
clean up after itself. The robot’s amazing capacity to flip burgers means that it has been working full-
time alongside its colleagues in CaliBurger in Pasadena since June 2018.

Ford

The automotive industry is the largest user of industrial robots. Ford has pioneered the use of
automatons in the car-making process. The company is using 'cobots', smaller robots that work
alongside human workers and can even perform delicate tasks such as making coffee for their flesh and
blood colleagues. In Ford's factory in Germany, robots help to fit shock absorbers into wheel arches.
When direct labor is the most significant product cost, it is reasonable to assume that manufacturing
overhead costs are driven by labor-the more labor being utilized, the higher the cost of overhead. As
production processes shift toward automation, labor costs become a smaller part of total production
costs, and overhead increases (resulting from increased machine maintenance, utilities. depreciation
costs, and the like). Thus, using direct labor or direct labor costs as an allocation base is no longer
reasonable. Some other allocation base such as machine hours would be better.