OM in the News: Japan’s Cow-Milking Robots

It’s milking time at the Kato farm in Japan, but when a Holstein ambles into the milking pen, nobody is there. A robot shoots out 4 arms and attaches a suction tube to each teat while she enjoys a tasty treat. Within 10 minutes, it is the next cow’s turn. The Kato family invested $2 million to build a shed that relies on a pair of $230,000 robots to milk some 90 cows and an $18,000 robot (the size of R2-D2) to help feed them. Here in Japan, 500 of the robots have been enlisted in recent years because human help is hard to find, reports The Wall Street Journal (May 7, 2018).

The milking robot is the size of a small truck. Before milking, a unit extends under the cow and cleans her udder; tubes carry the milk to a refrigerator. The machine also checks the cow’s identity from tags on her ears and stores data on each cow’s production. Kato said he was working from 4 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day before introducing the robots. Now the cows in the robot shed require only 3-4 hours a day of care.

Getting robots to milk Elsie-san is the kind of investment that just might rescue Japan. The country is struggling to deal with its declining population, and there is a problem even with those who are still working: They are only about 2/3 as productive as Americans, on average. Agriculture is at the bottom of the heap, with the average American farmer producing 40 times as much as the average Japanese farmer. Now a labor crunch is forcing Japanese businesses of all sizes to step up capital spending on robots and other information technology to speed everyday tasks such as delivering packages and taking sushi orders at conveyer-belt restaurants.

Classroom discussion questions:

1. Why is farm productivity much higher in the U.S. than in Japan?
2. In what other areas can Japan turn to robotics to replace an aging workforce?