From the archive, 9 December 1981: Robot kills factory worker

An industrial robot has killed a worker who was trying to repair it; the first accident of its kind reported in Japan which has the world’s largest robot workforce.

Details of the accident, which occurred in July at a plant of Kawasaki heavy industries, were revealed yesterday by the Labour Standards Bureau of Hyogo prefecture, western Japan. Kenji Urada, aged, 37, a worker at the Akashi plant of the company, was trapped by the work arm of the robot which pinned him against a machine which cuts gears. He had entered a prohibited area around the robot to repair it, the Labour Standards Bureau said.

According to factory officials, a wire mesh fence around the robot would have shut off the unit’s power supply when unhooked. But instead of opening it, Urada had apparently jumped over the fence. The employee set the machine on manual control but then accidentally brushed against the on-switch, and the claw of the robot pushed him against the machine tooling device. Other workers were unable to stop the robot’s action.

Labour officials blamed a combination of unfamiliarity of the workers and neglect of regulations governing the new machines. The company said the robot had been removed from the line, and a man-high fence erected around the two other robots working in the plant.

The disclosure of the accident is bound to cause concern among employees in Japanese industry which now has 75,000 robots of varying sophistication installed, and is introducing more at a rate of 20,000 a year.

The Japanese figure greatly exceeds the total in all other countries. Trade unions here have given the robots a mixed reception with relief that they are releasing workers from some of the tedious and dirty jobs in the assembly line process but with anxiety that they will eventually supplant the human work force.

Industrial are mainly used in die-casting, heat processing, cutting, grinding, and assembly line jobs such as welding and painting. Researchers in robot-building firms are working on a new generation of “smart” robots which will be capable of multiple operations on the assembly line. A leading robot maker says it expects to have three models on factory floors by next summer.