How Tele-manufacturing Is Solving the Skilled Trades Shortage

Brooklyn Kiosow Mar 08, 2023

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Tele-manufacturing “empowers manufacturers,” said Connie LaMorte, the principal engineer in the automation and tele-manufacturing group at EWI, acknowledging the skills gap in manufacturing. “We can get our experts anywhere, they can live anywhere, and they can work anywhere because now we can perform our jobs remotely.”

Over the last decade, 2.4 million industrial jobs went unfilled in the United States, costing the economy a whopping $2.5 trillion. To help companies hire the brightest manufacturing talent without location restrictions, EWI, a company dedicated to developing, testing, and implementing advanced manufacturing technology in industry, created tele-manufacturing as a new method of remote work.

Combining live streaming with robotic equipment, tele-manufacturing began with a focus on helping welders nearing retirement age or with unique accessibility needs perform their job remotely. LaMorte explained that EWI is finding ways for people who have learned manual skills over many years “use robotics and automation to transfer that manual dexterity across the internet.”

In the latest episode of the Thomas Industry Podcast, Thomas’ Vice President of Platform Growth and Engagement Cathy Ma spoke with LaMorte about the role of advanced sensors in tele-manufacturing and how the technology could be used on the Space Station.

What Is Tele-manufacturing?

A few years ago, when the American Welding Society highlighted the aging welding workforce, it acknowledged the likelihood of a skilled trades shortage. In 2020, 44% of the workforce was over the age of 45.

This inspired the idea for tele-welding, LaMorte explained. As many industrial employees with years of experience neared retirement, EWI wanted to find a way to help manufacturers maintain their workforce for longer and increase comfortability for workers who wanted to keep doing the job they love.

“What we wanted to figure out was, can we use automation to allow somebody to control a robot remotely?” said LaMorte. “It’s not that you want to [just] control the robot — you want to actually do that in real-time and make the movements you would expect it to make if you were right there.”

Tele-manufacturing enables workers to operate functional equipment from a distant console to complete critical manufacturing processes like welding, machining, and inspecting remotely.

LaMorte explained that tele-manufacturing utilizes a robot to hold a tool, which a worker monitors via cameras. “You’re going to have your machinery, like your robot, where the process is occurring, along with your sensors,” she said. “The handheld tool [workers] are using is plugged into their computer and actually has feedback on it. So it makes them feel like they are actually hitting things in the environment.”

“The device looks like a pin, and they’re just moving it freely, at any orientation or speed, that they want to move it,” she said. “The software talks to the device and transfers what [workers] are doing with the haptic device to the robot.”

With tele-manufacturing, workers are able to watch the robot’s movements and control it with a stylus-like device in real time. Therefore, instead of working in a confined area or on a high platform, they can work in a more comfortable environment, such as an office. This means they can continue to put to use the skills they’ve learned over many years to get the job done remotely.

How Tele-manufacturing Is Increasing Accessibility

One of the most significant benefits of tele-manufacturing is the ability to empower a section of the workforce that is underserved, benefitting workers and businesses alike.

“Not everyone can perform a manual task,” LaMorte said. “Maybe they’re aging, and they can’t crawl around and do the same tasks they were once able to do. Another [group] are people who are disabled, those who are unable to perform tasks that would require them to stand or move around.”

Tele-manufacturing makes career opportunities accessible to a more expansive workforce. “It empowers people to be able to work anywhere they want, with any sort of physical disability,” she said.

Sensors Advance, Sourcing Made Easy

One of the first steps of the research and development process behind tele-manufacturing was sourcing the components and technology needed to make the technology function correctly.

Advanced sensors are a primary component for tele-manufacturing, and LaMorte explained that in the last decade, there had been an explosion of different cameras and optical sensors available. For tele-manufacturing, 360-degree cameras and 3D inspection systems are vital for navigating a remote environment.

“If you’re operating a robot arm, you don’t want to run it into something, so you want to make sure you can see [everything],” she explained.

But not only have sensors advanced, but sourcing them is easier than ever. “I’ve been surprised at how many things you can get on Amazon,” LaMorte laughed. “Maybe 10 years ago, it was unheard of to get some of these sensors or optical devices, and now they’re very prevalent. They enhance the experience and allow more processes to be tele-operated.”

You can source collaborative robot suppliers on Thomasnet.com®.

Will Tele-manufacturing Head to Space?

“I always told people, ‘I want to be an inventor,’” LaMorte said. “My true love was always finding out how things worked.” It makes sense, then, that she was excited to tell us about the possibilities of tele-manufacturing in space and what that might look like.

In the future, LaMorte said she would love to see tele-manufacturing expand to different types of machinery and to other robots and cobots. She added that it would be ideal to have an option for a piece of equipment to be classified as “tele-ready.” “That would mean that a person [is ready] to control it remotely and can perform manufacturing processes remotely,” she said.

The future of tele-manufacturing is far-reaching — literally — LaMorte explained.

“Let’s call it a moonshot approach,” she said. “Manufacturing in space is something we are working toward, and tele-manufacturing is a way to make that happen. This is an actual way for people to perform manufacturing but be down here on Earth while [working on] something up on the Space Station.”