Combining additive manufacturing and advanced robotics, 3D printing of robotic arms with artificial intelligence capabilities have been used in a number of manufacturing settings.

An organization used RPA to answer the hundreds of emails that poured into its inboxes. Non-critical issues and emails were organized and answered by RPA, while staff focused on answered high-priority and other emails, improving the customer experience and operationally efficiencies.

A manufacturer replaced manually processing of orders with RPA (Robotic Process Automation)-managed pricing, automating fast price quotes for direct-to-customer, retail sales, and online order. This process enabled the organization to reallocate the employees previously performing these redundant and somewhat risky tasks to new, high-value initiatves.

A small machine shop operating a 10,000 square-foot facility with 10 employees provides precision machining and plastic injection tooling to various industries. The company recently saw an opportunity to increase efficiency by installing a robotic component to their CNC machine. The move, which was both a big cultural shift and a substantial capital investment for the company, paid off in a 70% increase in revenue. The company has been able to pass cost savings onto customers, increase sales volume and diversify into the medical and aerospace sectors. The company has also invested in improving worker benefits each year. It's created a better experience for skilled workers, since the robotic system assumes many repetitive tasks. Freed up form repetitive tasks, workers can better focus their energy and talents on moving automation forward. That's been essential as the company competes to retain workers amid a shortage of skilled machinists.

Fast-food companies are working with technology startups to incorporate more automation into their kitchens to address labor shortages and improve efficiency and productivity. One restaurant chain has an industrial robot arm with a grease-proof sleeve that slides along a rail attached to the ceiling, lifting and lowering baskets of fries. Other robots can assemble and cook food in bowls, while some pizza and taco chains are experimenting with vending machines. Other chains are using self-service ordering kiosks to automate away some customer-facing jobs and streamline processes like online ordering.