How can Cobots Help in Pandemic Management?
With the new threat to humanity presented by Pandemic COVID-19, another bigger challenges for the pharmaceutical industries are bulk vaccine production in the limited time span. How will the pharma sector be going to cope with these challenges? Well, automation has always improved the quality and efficiency of the production process in the pharmaceutical industry in terms of process optimization, better safety protocols and improvements in supply chain. Within the automation industry, robots have already been established; however, one of the fastest-growing segment of robotics industry is the use of cobots for various industrial and healthcare applications.
The next challenge is with the healthcare workers, who are unable to follow the social distancing approach. How one can reduce the risk to the life of medical professionals? Of course, by limiting direct interactions with the patients. This is where cobots (collaborative robots) came into picture. Not limited to this, drone a form of cobot along with GPS and embedded artificial intelligence feature is already being used to identify the disease hotspots, clusters of infected or suspected COVID patients and warns the administration on immediate basis. In addition, they can be used to spray the disinfectants.
Moreover, in the current situation, there is definitely an upsurge in the need for diagnostic tests for enabling the detection of the infection in suspected individuals. Considering the highly infectious nature of the contagion, cobots are being used in laboratories in handling analyte samples and transferring them into diagnostic machines / equipment for analysis, at small-scale. The testing protocols need to be designed to have greater throughput, with the capability to process thousands of samples at a time, which can be easily taken care by the cobots. With the significant potential of cobots for streamlined processes, repeatability safety measures and efficient workplace, there is quick adoption of cobots in the healthcare and medical device space.

The current pandemic is clearly justifying the high and right time for the adoption of cobots. Not limited to life sciences, the cobots are emerging as the brightest star to fade away the loss in majority of the industries, due to worldwide lockdown. The significant financial crisis can be covered in the short time by adopting the cobots, which can speed up all the operations in order to meet the upcoming demand. The most favorable part on the adoption of cobots is their feasible cost. This suggest that adoption of cobots is possible for small, mid as well as large industries.
In the midst of current COVID-19 crisis, cobots have become more mainstream.
Need to speed up the testing of COVID-19? Adopt cobots
Need to speed up the research? Adopt cobots
Need to protect the health care workers? Adopt cobots
Need to sanitize the areas? Adopt cobots
Need to identify the hotspots? Adopt cobots
Need to meet the increasing demand in manufacturing? Adopt cobots
Let us not waste time in worrying about the loss! Let us focus on the most suitable way to meet the loss by leveraging the automation and technology together by deploying robots and cobots!