For years, there has been a fear in a variety of industries that robotics and automation, in general, were coming to “steal” jobs from hardworking men and women across the country. This is perhaps no more evident than it has been in terms of road work, where new solutions are emerging all the time that can perform many of the tasks that formerly required human-employed road workers.
Case in point: the Robotic Crack Sealer. Also commonly referred to as the Robotic Maintenance Vehicle (RMV®), there are those who are under the impression that this is a solution designed to entirely replace existing road crews. Instead, the opposite is true:
It’s meant to empower them.
Why the Robotic Crack Sealer is the Friend Road Workers Need
It’s no secret that road work, in general, is incredibly dangerous. This is especially true when workers are operating on highways and other busy roads where it is impossible to totally stop the flow of traffic while important work is completed.
That, in essence, is the problem the Robotic Crack Sealer was designed to solve. It leverages a sophisticated artificial intelligence-powered vision software that has been equipped with cameras and lasers, allowing it to “understand” the distressed areas in which it is working – even as conditions change.
It creates safer working spaces for employees by moving them out of harm’s way, allowing the RMV to bear the brunt of the dangerous work while human employees focus on those other important, and safer, tasks that need their attention.
Truly, you’d be hard-pressed to find any road worker (especially a seasoned veteran of the field) who would argue against making their day-to-day life safer. This is especially true once it has been confirmed to them that their jobs are not in jeopardy.
Of course, organizational leaders stand to benefit quite a bit from what the Robotic Crack Sealer has to offer. The solution created by Robotic Maintenance Vehicles, LLC, and designed by Pioneer Industrial Systems, for example, sees an R2000iC FANUC robot integrated onto a truck chassis that itself has been outfitted with components that create a far more efficient form of work than ever before.
The Robotic Crack Sealer can perform those dangerous tasks far faster and more accurately than a human could, yielding satisfactory results in a fraction of the time. That human labor doesn’t have to be eliminated – instead, it can be reallocated elsewhere to focus on tasks that generate the most value.
Workers are safer, materials have been conserved, and money has been saved. All of these are reasons why, if you’re not already embracing RMV and similar robotics process automation tools, now would be an excellent time to start.
If you’d like to find out more information about how Robotic Maintenance Vehicles can support and empower road workers from coast to coast, or if you’re eager to find out about some of the additional benefits of robotics process automation in general, please don’t delay – contact the team at RMV today!