Brian Carlisle is CEO of Precise Automation, which sells collaborative robots for small part handling and assembly. Prior to founding Precise, Mr. Carlisle and Dr. Bruce Shimano founded Adept Technology, where Mr. Carlisle was CEO. Adept sold assembly robots and had sales of over $100 million. Mr. Carlisle was President of the Robot Industry Association for 3 years and has given numerous talks on robotics.
Over the last 50 years the cost of labor in manufacturing has risen steadily, and the willingness of many people to perform highly repetitive tasks on assembly lines has decreased. Over the same period the equivalent hourly cost of robot labor has steadily declined. Human labor turnover in U.S. manufacturing averaged 16% in 2016 according…
