Automation Against the Skilled Labour Shortage: Where Robots Fill Staffing Gaps

Robots fill staffing gaps where tasks are repetitive, physically demanding or staffed across several shifts, and where volume justifies the effort. They take over from the skilled employee with judgement the work for which that employee is overqualified. This article shows how decision makers check tasks for suitability, choose the right robot type and calculate the business case.

The pressure is real. In August 2022 the German Federal Statistical Office reported, based on the microcensus, that around 12.9 million people in the labour force would reach retirement age over the following fourteen years. Many companies feel this already, because positions in production and in the warehouse stay vacant for months. The German Economic Institute (IW) defines the skills gap as the number of vacancies for which no suitably qualified unemployed person is available anywhere in Germany at the same time. For the individual company this means that more job adverts do not solve the problem when no fitting candidates exist.

Automation is the second answer alongside recruiting and training. The International Federation of Robotics (IFR) reported in autumn 2023 about 3.9 million industrial robots in operation worldwide. According to the IFR analysis of January 2024, Germany reached a robot density of 415 units per 10,000 employees in manufacturing, which puts it third behind South Korea and Singapore. The technology is widespread. What remains open for most companies is which of their tasks suit it.

Which tasks suit robots?

Tasks with fixed steps and high repetition in a standardised environment suit robots. Typical examples are palletising, loading and unloading machines and screwing identical parts, as well as transport between stations. These tasks strain people physically or are monotonous, and they are hard to staff on the labour market.

Unsuitable are tasks with highly varying parts, objects that are hard to grip or a large share of judgement and improvisation. A robot asked to sort different parts in different positions every day needs vision and an elaborate gripper, and the effort quickly exceeds the benefit. It helps to change the task beforehand: deliver parts in fixtures, bundle variants, enlarge batches.

The following check rates each task against six criteria. A task that meets four of them is a candidate for closer examination.

Which robot type closes which gap?

The robot type follows the kind of task and the space available in the plant. Four types cover most staffing gaps in manufacturing and logistics. The articles on cobots and on automated guided vehicles go deeper on two of them.

Manufacturers and system integrators supply the technology. For management, what counts is whether the task fits the type and whether the organisation takes over operation. Software robots concern administration rather than the shop floor, but they follow the logic described in the article on RPA bots.

How does a robot pay back against a vacancy?

A robot pays back when saved staff costs plus avoided vacancy costs exceed investment and running costs. The cost block that is missing most often in practice is the vacancy. An unfilled post costs lost value added, overtime for colleagues and sometimes contractual penalties for late delivery.

The values are assumed and must be replaced with your own figures. Two assumptions deserve particular scrutiny. The relief holds only if employees actually take on other tasks or posts lapse through natural turnover. And the robot itself needs skilled people: programming and maintenance require knowledge that has to be built up in the plant. Anyone who offsets only the wage costs of the operators underestimates this item. The article on robotics in medium-sized manufacturing contains a fuller calculation logic.

How do you introduce automation against the skills shortage?

The introduction works in four steps that follow the Niehues Delivery Model. First you understand the bottleneck: which posts are open, what does each week of vacancy cost, and which task causes the bottleneck? Then you build proof in the real process, with real parts and at the intended cycle time. Most system integrators offer trials on original parts that show gripping and cycle time before the investment is made. Next the business case is confirmed with the real values from the proof. Only then does the introduction follow, in which operation is handed over.

In the introduction, people decide the outcome. Employees whose task changes need an early and clear statement of what changes and what their role will be afterwards. A team that experiences the robot as relief uses it and reports faults early. A team that experiences it as a threat works around it. A named person in operation owns program changes and maintenance from the first day.

Finally, the question of extension belongs here. The first robot creates experience that makes the second cheaper. Humanoid robots, which received much coverage at the start of the year, are not a solution to a company's staffing gap today. The article on humanoid robots puts the state of play in context.

Robots, recruiting or training: which solves the problem?

The three routes complement each other, and the order follows the bottleneck. For tasks that require judgement, training remains the right route. For tasks that are uniform and strenuous, checking automation first pays off, because new applicants are hard to find there. Recruiting works best for roles with a development path. A management team that pursues all three routes at once needs a sequence and an owner for each route.

Automation with Niehues Consulting

Niehues Consulting is a consultancy for AI management and organisation design from a delivery perspective, based in Düsseldorf. Founder Marin Niehues brings AI and automation into operations, in projects ranging from VC-funded scale-ups to DAX 40 groups and in more than 20 countries on six continents. The work lies in the business case and in the selection and sequencing of applications, as well as in delivery management and organisation design. Manufacturers and system integrators build and install the robots themselves. Niehues Consulting accompanies the decision, the introduction and the operation within the company.

Two checking questions of the Niehues Delivery Model matter most here: Is the business case confirmed with real values? Who is responsible for operation from day one? The entry point is a free initial consultation of 30 minutes, which you can book through the contact form. Scope and terms of an engagement are discussed there.