BRICKLAYING IS THE latest trade that automation has in its sight.
An Australian inventor has developed a robot capable of building the brick frame of a house in two days.
This is a process that usually takes almost two months of manual labour.
The Hadrian robot has been in development for more than 10 years, Perth Now reports, and the project has cost the equivalent of €4.8 million.
Working from a fixed location, the robot uses a laser guidance system to guide a boom to place the bricks with extreme precision.
The system was developed by Mark Pivac following a shortage of bricklayers in the mid-2000s, and now threatens to resign bricklaying as a trade to the history books – but that wasn’t his intention.
“We have absolutely nothing against bricklayers,” Pivac told Perth Now.
The problem is the average age of bricklayers is going up and it’s difficult to attract new young people to the trade.
Ireland is currently facing into a possible skill shortage as the construction industry regains pace lost during the recession.
The Irish Independent reported last year that just a handful of apprentices will graduate in 2018.
This includes just three bricklayers.
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