[updated – I was actually saving to draft and saved to publish] Rockwell Automation reported record attendance for both its Safety Automation Forum (380) and Process Solutions User Group (850 about 800) this week. While both of those sessions continued Tuesday, 100 journalists convened for a day of sessions highlighting trends that Rockwell thinks are important for manufacturing plus a round of executive interviews. The opening of the 2-day Automation Fair event brought another 12,000 plus attendees.
In an interesting point/counterpoint, the first keynote by Robert Atkinson, President, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation was on the importance of manufacturing and how clueless economists are about it. The second keynote by William Strauss who is senior economist and industry economic advisor of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Atkinson was a good keynoter who made some points about the importance of manufacturing to the general economy. Strauss followed with data to back that up. One of the big points I got was that manufacturing is still a profitable business to be in.
Two panels emphasized key points Rockwell wished to get across–first was on the “optimized plant and supply” and second was workforce development.
During my executive interviews, I achieved the sudden realization that “Plant Wide Optimization” along with “Integrated Architecture” are more than cool marketing terms and PowerPoint slides. Customers are actually using the tools and technologies to achieve control at the machine or process level, plant level and enterprise level. It was one of those “Duh” moments, but in my defense, I hear lots of marketing terms and buzz words that lack substance and reality. Or, perhaps they are theoretical frameworks for future product development. At any rate, I learned otherwise.
I always find amusing the way companies talk about competitors or even the reputation companies have among end users. Often I find the reality much different from rumor. So, I saw an acquaintance whose entire career until a few months ago has been anti-Rockwell. Now he works for it. It was his first Automation Fair. He was grinning from ear to ear. Just goes to show, observe for yourself and make your own judgements.
Rockwell had announced excellent financial results for its last fiscal year. Revenues are now greater than $6 billion. The sales channel is solidifying. In fact, the theme that I perceive about Rockwell is that things are coming together. I see a much more integrated company than any time in the past. Some old fiefdoms are gone. It is poised to take it to the next level.
If I have this right, Atkinson was saying that mfg job losses in the US were not really a result of increased productivity, whereas Strauss was claiming that they were and made a big thing about the wonders of technology-driven productivity and the inevitable impact on jobs.
But Strauss' chart indicated that productivity GROWTH increased every decade until 2000-9, when it decreased (compared to to 1990-99), which seems rather strange – given that we had more and more of this wonderful technology than ever before. And so makes me think Atkinson may be more correct than our economist, in that that increased productivity is not the main culprit behind US mfg job losses.
I made a note that I want to get my hands on those slides. Some say that productivity increases (say, due to automation) reduce jobs because we need fewer people to produce the same output (or even more). It is easy to cite agriculture, where this is a fact. (I'm thinking only U.S., because that's the only numbers I've seen.)
But I think you could take a broader view and see that in many cases the jobs shift–say from direct labor (e.g. farmer or production worker) to other jobs (say the people who design and build farm or production equipment). There are many facets to this gem, and I've never seen a satisfactory analysis that takes more than a simplistic view.
I had that problem in my macroeconomics classes, by the way. I kept asking "how do you know" and never was given a satisfactory answer. But I had the same problems in chemistry and math classes, too. I'm just weird that way.
Then there is the problem of jobs as a percentage of the total. My observations (and I'd love to find the time to do the analysis) are that there was a huge surge in the US employment supply beginning in the early 70s when women entered the workforce in huge numbers. That had to have a depressing effect on wages. And there were not enough manufacturing jobs to absorb them all, so the proportions had to decrease.
Guess I'm glad I didn't major in economics.