With advancements in AI, edge computing, and robotics, there have been breakthroughs that are improving worker safety and enabling robots, like Spot, to perform tasks that human beings do not want to do in difficult or dangerous situations. Not only does this advanced technology protect humans from such jobs, but also improves efficiency and consistency in the results. Certrec was able to hold a discussion and get insights from IBM executives, Kay Murphy and Nancy Greco, who have had a hand in the development of such technology.

Question: What are your thoughts on how IBM and Spot can help a power plant or utility today?

Kay Murphy: Talking specifically about power generation, first of all, there is the safety factor. Power generation has plenty of hazardous areas where you want to use a robot instead of a human. There is a great safety factor around that.

The second important factor mentioned by Kay was regulatory compliance.

Kay Murphy: Consider having a person doing inspections in an area using a written checklist or even a mobile device. They are just checking the boxes repeatedly. As things become repetitive, humans pay less attention. Their attention wanders and they are just checking the boxes after a while. It is kind of a dull job. Read Kay’s complete answer here.

Nancy Greco: Yeah, and I’d like to add to that too. Many of the clients and viewers reading this will think, “but what’s really changed? Robotics has been around for a long time. Has anything changed in the past few years that makes it a very compelling case to adopt robotics?” The short answer is: absolutely! A lot has changed. Just in the past few years, you have seen the emergence of something called edge computing. Read Nancy’s complete answer here.

Certrec would like to thank Kay and Nancy for their insightful perspectives.