How robots could solve the shortage of skilled workers – your SZ

The guy is one meter tall and also quite slim at 40 kilograms. He has a round head and big black eyes – his name is Pepper, his exact age is unknown. All we know is that there are around 40,000 of them worldwide and that the first examples were probably born in 2014 at the French start-up Aldebaran in Paris – as service robots. Six years later, Pepper’s fate seemed to be sealed, production was stopped due to lack of demand.

The clumsy fellow has a lot to offer. He can recite fairy tales, sing songs and provide information, for example about the weather. Or even act as entertainers or fitness trainers for seniors in nursing and retirement homes. He also has a kind of brother named Nao.

He, in turn, is half the size of Pepper and prefers to offer his services as a concierge assistant in hotels and hostels. At colleges, students taught him how to play soccer. Since then, different teams have been playing against each other for the “Robocup”.

Curious, helpful and independent, these are the three most important characteristics of Pepper and Nao, say its builders. They conceived the two journeymen as so-called companion robots and designed them to act in an informative and communicative manner. This opens up a wide range of employment opportunities for them as servants in the healthcare industry and care, in retail and in the hotel industry or in the entire education sector.

But why did interest in Pepper and Nao dry up faster than expected? Thomas Hähn thinks he knows why the robot with human features has not yet become a success story. “There was no real vision,” says Hähn, who heads the United Robotics Group (URG), a subsidiary of the Essen Foundation Ruhrkohle AG (RAG).

As painters, welders or fitters, they work almost non-stop – without getting tired

Instead, there was some trouble with technical failures. Even if it were just Pepper’s broken fingers. The initial euphoria quickly gave way to increasing disinterest in the humanoid machine. After all, there was a lack of sufficiently specific application options for larger sales figures, says Hähn. “But that should be different now.”

For a long time, robots were considered a threat. The concern was that these machines would take people’s jobs away. Those times are long gone. The economy and society are moaning about an ever more serious shortage of skilled workers and because of a lack of workers for simple, sometimes stupid and sometimes physically difficult jobs that nobody in this country wants to do anymore. But now, it is hoped, robots and artificial intelligence could take over such work and keep the economy running.

So far, robots have mainly been used in factories – as painters, welders or fitters, they work almost non-stop without getting tired. More than 230,000 of these industrial robots are now in action in Germany. And with their high productivity alone, they help to mitigate the demographic problem.

You can mow the lawn, vacuum or mop the floor and wash dishes

In the meantime, however, a new generation of robots is growing up: small, agile, equipped with lots of sensors and computing power, they offer themselves as direct service providers for people. You can mow the lawn, vacuum or mop the floor and wash dishes.

They are usually warmly welcomed in society because they can not only clean, clear or carry, but can also become entertainment or even communication partners in the future. This is particularly important in nursing.

In an aging society, the need for care and support is increasing. The shortage of skilled workers is particularly striking here. According to a study by the Bertelsmann Foundation, there will be a shortage of more than half a million nursing staff by 2030. The only question is whether devices à la Pepper can close the gap.

Hähn is convinced that a good deal of the impending service gaps can be closed with the help of service robots. “This gives older people, for example, more independence and thus a better quality of life,” says the experienced manager, who started a garage company in the early 1990s, which over the years as the Hahn Group has grown to become a global specialist in automation technology and robots 2014 majority in the portfolio of the RAG-Stiftung Beteiligungsgesellschaft (RSBG).

With the Bochum United Robotics Group, Hähn now wants to build on the success of the Hahn Group. “The framework conditions are right,” he says. “The market for professional service robots is the most promising hope in the entire robot business.”

Statistics prove him right. According to the industry association IFR, the market for service robots is now worth almost seven billion dollars according to the latest surveys. By 2030, it could grow to as much as $170 billion annually, leaving the market for industrial robots far behind.

The robotics industry, which has split into many segments over the years, is still considered fragmented. “The market”, believes Hähn, urgently needs consolidation. “And that’s exactly what our group came up for,” he says confidently. “We have made our way to become the European robotics champion.”

The group, which was only founded in 2021, recently provided evidence of this with the takeover of the pepper producer Aldebaran. The French company is considered a pioneer in the development of interactive service robots. In 2014, the Japanese company Softbank Robotics Group took over the French start-up Aldebaran and then renamed it Softbank Robotics Europe.

For the Japanese, that was just an important moment to rise to become the world’s leading robot manufacturer. Later, among other things, they bought the already legendary robot division Boston Dynamics from Google. But the ambitious dreams of company founder Masayoshi Son did not come true. After losing deals with communication and special robots, Softbank sold these segments again and also stopped producing Pepper. But now everything is about to change for Pepper and his French builders. More than three quarters of the Softbank subsidiary from Paris went to Hähns URG in Bochum. The remaining shares of almost 25 percent continue to be held by the Japanese. The French, on the other hand, are now getting their old name Aldebaran and, if you will, their main product, Pepper, back.

Open detailed view

With the Pepper takeover, URG is now more broadly positioned than almost any other competitor. In addition to Aldebaran, the group currently includes seven other companies, including the robot manufacturer Rethink Robotics, which was brought to Germany from America, or software specialists such as Cologne-based Humanizing.

With this portfolio, the URG wants to make progress in various application areas – from industry-related fields such as the life sciences industry to service areas such as hotels, hospitality or health and care. Aldebaran’s debut at the URG not only includes Pepper and Nao, who are now to be upgraded in terms of performance, but also a new voice-controlled mobile robot, Plato, which can be used in the catering trade, for example.

What is extremely important to the robot expert Hähn, in addition to the functional details, are the data protection measures associated with the URG products. “We offer our customers 100% data security in our technology and for the people around the robots,” he says. “That sets us apart from many competitors from China or Southeast Asia and is increasingly giving Europe a competitive edge in our increasingly digitized world.”

Hähn wants to grow with the group by 20 to 25 percent over the next few years through internal growth and further acquisitions. Overall, the automation and robotics business of the RAG-Stiftung’s investment company currently accounts for around 350 million euros a year. The United Robotics Group is contributing an estimated 60 to 65 million euros. Hähn is certain that the total revenue from automation and robotics can be doubled in the next five to six years and that even billions in sales can be achieved in the long term.

Bernd Tönjes, the CEO of the RAG-Stiftung, who also owns a majority stake in Hähn’s group through its investment company, believes so too. The foundation, which has to pay for the follow-up costs of hard coal mining year after year and needs 300 million euros a year for this alone, has built up another mainstay with robot technology.

The RAG Foundation has just acquired parts of the old Opel site in Bochum for the new company headquarters and the production of the robot group. “We’ve moved away from coal and steel and are investing more and more in young high-tech companies,” says Tönjes. “Because we need sustainable production and products here that will continue to change and shape the Ruhr area more and more – it’s good that we now have even more robot builders with us.”