Fasten Your Bots: Getting Human-Robot Work in Sync
Real-time task negotiation between people and machines can reduce delays, improve quality, and boost productivity in complex workflows.
Nicole had been running the final line at Tesseract Motors (a fictional automaker with a cult following for its sportier sedans) for long enough to know when a problem was brewing. Station 7 was supposed to be a model of efficiency: the point where a nearly complete vehicle receives its wiring harnesses, cable routing, and bracket fastening before moving down the line for interior assembly. The work was shared between seasoned operators and a set of cobots installed a few years ago to handle repetitive torque tasks. On paper, it was a textbook human-robot partnership.
But on the floor, things were different. Variants kept rolling in: one week it was a limited-edition trim with additional infotainment cabling, the next it was an interior upgrade with different console brackets. The changeovers were quick by engineering standards but painfully slow by line standards. Operators developed their own workarounds; the robots stuck stubbornly to their sc…