The plane makers in the European Union (EU) will introduce more Robots technology to their factory, a statement said on Wednesday.
According to the EU, by bringing robots onto the factory floor to carry out the uncomfortable and tedious tasks, the EU-funded project VALERI hopes to place a higher value on human know-how.
Seven partners, including Airbus, from Spain, Germany and Austria are building a working laboratory prototype and will test it in a factory setting by 2015.
Car manufacturers have been using stationary robots to help build their products for years, but airplanes are constructed differently, posing challenges to the use of robotics.
Until now, the manner in which planes are built and put together has meant that shifts of workers carry out assembly and inspection.
"If we can solve the very complicated technical hurdles that prevent widespread uptake of robots in production, we can free-up people to work on the more value-added work," explains Jose Saenz, the project coordinator and an engineer at the Fraunhofer Institute for Factory Operation and Automation.