In March the first iron-collar workers joined the legions of blue-collar cleaning and services employees at Marriott Corporation. Avoiding walls and sidestepping obstacles, these services robots or sabots, trace a sudsy path 1 the corridors of two Chicago hospitals. They are an attempt 2 the $7.5-billion company to explore 3 some jobs might eventually be 4 by machine labor.
Marriott is 5 of the first institutional service companies to add robots to 6 work force. They are also being tested by the U.S. Postal Service and are even being 7 in France to clean floors at the Louver Museum.
The inspiration for Marriott"s experiment was a 1990 study prepared by the company with a consultant, Joseph Engelberger, a robot pioneer. The study 8 that the corporation could automate 8,000 jobs in a single year, achieving immediate payroll savings of $200 million. Additional savings would follow in each of 10 years afterward. The plan attracted the rapt attention of the top executives, 9 the chairman and a vice chairman.
The ambitious original scheme was scaled down when the company was forced to slash its annual $1.3 billion capital budget by $650 million. So far it has 10 a well-oiled worker at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in downtown Chicago and one more at a medical center a few miles away. Although the first units cost more, Marriott eventually expects to buy robots 11 $20,000 a piece, 12 four times more than a manual-cleaning machine.
Based on early experience with mechanical workers so far, Marriott has ordered 13 units. Robots might eventually be used for 14 tasks as cutting the grass on golf 15 or perhaps placing silverware on trays.