Travis Teo

SINGAPORE (Reuters – Singapore businesses have been increasingly reliant on robots in order to assist with a variety of tasks. These include scanning bookshelves and surveying construction sites.

According to the manpower ministry’s data, although foreign workers are an important part of the city-state, their numbers fell by 235,000. Between December 2019 and September 2020, they declined by 235,000.

    At a Singapore construction site, a four-legged robot called “Spot”, built by U.S. company Boston Dynamics, scans sections of mud and gravel to check on work progress, with data fed back to construction company Gammon’s control room.

    Gammon’s general manager, Michael O’Connell, said using Spot required only one human employee instead of the two previously needed to do the job manually.

O’Connell stated that “replacing manpower on-site is gaining real momentum,” and believes the labor shortages in the sector, which was made worse by this pandemic will continue to exist.

    Meanwhile, Singapore’s National Library has introduced two shelf-reading robots that can scan labels on 100,000 books, or about 30 percent of its collection, per day.

Lee Yee Fuang assistant director of the National Library Board stated that staff don’t need to read call numbers on the shelves one at a time. This reduces routine and labor-intensive elements.

    Singapore has 605 robots installed per 10,000 employees in the manufacturing industry, the second-highest number globally, after South Korea’s 932, according to a 2021 report by the International Federation of Robotics.

    Robots are also being used for customer-facing tasks, with more than 30 metro stations set to have robots making coffee for commuters.

    Keith Tan, chief executive of Crown Digital, which created the barista robot, said it was helping solve the “biggest pain-point” in food and beverage – finding staff – while also creating well-paid positions to help automate the sector.

But, not everyone who uses the service wants to interact with people.

    “We always want to have some kind of human touch,” said commuter Ashish Kumar, while sipping on a robot-brewed drink.