---
title: "‘Cobots’ enhance robotic manufacturing"
description: "Manufacturers have begun experimenting with a new generation of \"cobots\" ( collaborative robots) designed to work side-by-side with humans."
date: "2015-01-26"
modified: "2015-08-13"
authors:
  - name: "Matthew Lincoln"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/justmatt"
url: "https://futurism.com/cobots-enhance-robotic-manufacturing"
categories:
  - "Robotics"
  - "Robots and Machines"
tags:
  - "robotics"
---

# ‘Cobots’ enhance robotic manufacturing

![Default Futurism featured image](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Futurism-Filler-Image.jpg>)

- Cobots are less expensive and intended to be easier to reprogram and integrate into manufacturing.
- For example, Steelcase owns four next-generation robots based on a platform called Baxter, made by Rethink Robotics. Each Baxter robot has two arms and a tablet-like panel for “eyes” that provide cues to help human workers anticipate what the robot will do next.
- While managers tended to see Baxter as part of the overall system of automation, some front-line workers “saw Baxter as a social being or almost a co-worker, and they talked about Baxter as if it were another person,” she says. “They unconsciously attributed human-like characteristics.”