by Gary Mintchell | Dec 14, 2015 | Automation, Workforce
John Bernaden recently retired as Director of Corporate Communications at Rockwell Automation and vice-chairman of the Smart Manufacturing Leadership Coalition. He’s still keeping his mind active in the manufacturing space. Here is a piece on LinkedIn on automation and jobs and robots with a whimsical title. Check out the comments (one by me).
Add your comments there or here.
I have written a few pieces on this topic myself: here, here, and here.
John tends to like Andrew McAfee, whom he got to speak at a session once. McAfee is OK, but he gets pessimistic and then the only way he can see out of his box is to start talking something akin to socialism–government hiring or something.
Demographic trends favor robots
Other things I have bee reading and listening to suggest that we are coming to a shortage of workers (check demographic trends) and the need to care for an increasingly elderly population–therefore we’ll really need robots and other automation.
I also believe that the human spirit is one of endeavor. We will make work. There could be an entirely different economy coming–maybe more knowledge work on one end and more craft work on the other. Even now we have a need for craftsmen in a variety of trades.
by Gary Mintchell | Oct 5, 2015 | Automation, Motion Control, News, Technology
The Association for Advancing Automation (A3) today published a white paper entitled “Robots Fuel the Next Wave of U.S. Productivity and Job Growth” in which data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and a wide range of manufacturing firms document how and why increasing the use of robots is associated with increased employment.
Key statistics from the A3 white paper show that during the non-recessionary periods – 1996-2000, 2002-2007, and 2010-2014 – general employment and robot shipments both increased. Since 2010, the robotics industry in the United States has grown substantially. Even during this period of record-breaking robot sales, U.S. employment increased. This new data is in stark contrast to media coverage and a perception that increasing use of robots causes higher rates of unemployment in the U.S.
At a glance:
- Robots save and create jobs
- Robots take care of the dull, dirty, or dangerous jobs
- Robots extend workplace functionality, improving the bottom line
- Robots are reviving American manufacturing
- Robots create better, safer, higher paying jobs
“We are seeing concrete shifts in the factors that resulted in cuts to the U.S. manufacturing work force over the past few decades,” said Jeff Burnstein, president of A3. “Manufacturing automation increasingly provides the flexibility in the variety of tasks robots perform to drive improvements in overall product quality and time to market.”
Burnstein concluded, “One of the biggest challenges we now face is closing the skills gap to fill jobs. Robots are optimizing production more than ever, increasing global competitiveness, and performing dull, dirty and dangerous tasks that enable companies to create higher-skilled, better-paying, and safer jobs where people use their brains, not their brawn.”
Correlation does not equal causation
The white paper overlays graphs of robot sales and US employment. I asked Burnstein if he is trying to show causation from the correlation. He said that was not the intent. “It is not so much to show causation as it is simply to refute the argument,” he told me in an interview preceding the release. Taking the argument that robots cause unemployment, one would expect climbing robot sales to be reflected in declining employment. Statistics do not support that supposition.
Anecdotal evidence
As companies seek to bring manufacturing operations stateside while remaining cost-competitive, they continue to turn to automation to help lead the new wave of productivity and job growth in the U.S.
“The whole premise for our company is to bring manufacturing back to this country, and our new robot fits perfectly with that master plan,” said Geoff Escalette, CEO of faucet-maker RSS Manufacturing & Phylrich in Costa Mesa, California. “Our robot not only makes it possible to increase production speed without buying additional CNC machines, but also helped us open up 30 percent more capacity on existing machinery.”
Robotics also helps companies stay competitive when seeking new talent—particularly those who are interested in long-lasting careers working with technology.
“It’s really an opportunity for us to grow,” reports Matt Tyler, president and CEO of Vickers Engineering, a contract precision engineering manufacturer in Michigan. “Because we have robotics and are able to compete on a global scale, it makes the U.S. more competitive in manufacturing, and that’s good for all of us.”
The white paper includes notes from other manufacturers who both acquired additional automation and people.
The Association for Advancing Automation is the global advocate for the benefits of automating. A3 promotes automation technologies and ideas that transform the way business is done. A3 is the umbrella group for Robotic Industries Association (RIA), AIA – Advancing Vision + Imaging, and Motion Control & Motor Association (MCMA). RIA, AIA, and MCA combined represent some 850 automation manufacturers, component suppliers, system integrators, end users, research groups and consulting firms from throughout the world that drive automation forward.
by Gary Mintchell | Sep 15, 2015 | Automation, Technology
People keep grabbing headlines, and probably clicks, with scare stories projecting the end of life as we know it because the robots (and automation) are coming to take away all the jobs.
I have written on this topic a few times:
This is an important topic–but not for idle speculation.
I believe people were made to work. It is in our nature. I understand that people exist who retired early, play a little golf, sit around, maybe attend a committee meeting a month. Given reasonably good health, sitting around is something I cannot fathom.
And you need money to live. We may be living in the first society where people have been guaranteed an income through pensions (distinct from savings) and can afford not to work.
It is the urge to be useful, the urge to create, and the urge to feed our families and ourselves that keeps most of us going.
Hence the fear that robots and automation will take all the jobs and most people will be left in poverty.
The people who really do need to pay attention to these trends are those creative types at the forefront of technology. They are creating robots that help people. This product development effort recognizes a key demographic trend–that the population of the US and Western Europe (probably also China) is increasingly aged.
We are facing a shortage of workers in the future, not a surplus. People such as Rodney Brooks and his Baxter robot are forging a new frontier in human assistants. Even in the industrial side ABB and Fanuc (among others I’m sure) are unveiling “cooperative” robots who can work side-by-side with humans no cages required to accomplish work.
Recently Moira Gunn of Tech Nation NPR show and podcast interviewed New York Times journalist John Markoff about his book “Machines of Loving Grace.”
So often New York Times journalists get technology and manufacturing wrong. I have not read the book (yet), but Markoff takes a balanced and reasonable approach in his interview. He’s not trying to make money scaring people. He is actually explaining what is really coming.
We’ll have people. We’ll have robots. We’ll have jobs to do and problems to solve. Life will go on.
by Gary Mintchell | Apr 20, 2015 | Automation, Data Management, Education, Internet of Things, Leadership, Operations Management, Productivity
I took 10 days off to go on vacation in Europe. I tried to write ahead, but ran out of time. So last week I reposted several older items.
We did the Danube cruise on Viking (you can see its ads on Masterpiece Mystery on PBS) from Nuremberg to Budapest–two of my favorite cities.
Three are many notable takeaways from the trip, but one thing stands out from a professional perspective. That would be workforce recruitment and training.
Every person on the ship’s staff was obviously screened well and then trained impeccably. It’s the same reason I like to stay at Marriotts. The staff is invariably friendly and trained–not only to do their jobs well but also to excel at customer service.
This contrasted markedly with the poor American Airlines guy who was managing (sort of) the queue through security at JFK. He’d do one thing, then reverse himself, then reverse again. All this in the space of 15 minutes! The queues were hopeless. Some industrial engineering training would go a long way toward adequate customer service at JFK.
Big Data and Jim Pinto
Meanwhile, I’ve finished sorting through about 1,200 emails today in addition to a couple of meetings. Catching up with work after a trip is so much fun.
Jim Pinto’s latest blog message was buried in my email folder. Turning from his recent ruminations on life, he turned to the Big Data subject.
Here’s Jim’s summary:
A revolution that compares with the impact of the Internet is changing the way that business, politics, health, education – almost everything – is being conducted. It is pervasive to the extent that everyone knows that it’s there, but no one can do anything to stop encroachment Every digital process that surrounds everybody at all times generates data: messages, updates, images posted to social networks; readings from sensors; GPS signals from cell phones. What’s revolutionary is that something can now be done with the data. Online retailers develop algorithms to predict what individual customers like, performing better every time recommendations get a response or are ignored. Political campaigns analyze large datasets to create predictions, giving data-savvy campaigns a major advantage. Big data has become the basis of competition and growth.
What with sensors everywhere, all that data must go somewhere in order to be useful. The consumer domain has been struggling with this. And it is all so debatable. Is is service or invasion of privacy for all these consumer companies to compile all that data about us? On the one hand, they hope to serve us ads and information that would be relevant to what we’re interested in. On the other, what if a nefarious agent–say the Department of Homeland Security or the local police–grabbed all that data and then trumped up charges against us?
In the manufacturing/industrial domain, ubiquitous sensors and massive amounts of data are old hat. But…are historians adequate to the tasks required by modern manufacturing methods? What do we need to learn and incorporate from the new database technologies from consumer big data? Who is working on that? This is crucial to the success of Industrial Internet of Things.
Anyway, check out Jim and debate with him–he loves that!
by Gary Mintchell | Feb 25, 2015 | Automation, Technology
An article in today’s Wall Street Journal, Jobs and the Clever Robot, dredges up once again the debate “will automation take away all jobs”.
In typical modern journalism style, the article offers no conclusion. It’s “he said, she said” reporting. Let’s just go out and get a few quotes on each side and fill some space. “People are always interested in whether their jobs will go away,” I’m sure some editor told a reporter.
I, for one, wish we already had driverless cars. My trips to Chicago over the past 16 years would have been so much better if I could have read or worked rather than driving. No train or bus was a feasible alternative. I don’t really want to see truck drivers lose their jobs, but every time I’m on suspect roads (slush, ice, snow, fog) and have a semi rig pass me at a high rate of speed I’d love to see automated drivers.
The problem is, we cannot foresee the types of jobs and the changes in work coming in the future. Maybe we need some science fiction writers to tackle the subject and dream up alternative scenarios. What is manufacturing going to look like in 20 years? Can we automate any more of a refinery than we do now? Should we? That would give us more to think on.
Critical reading
Speaking of “he said, she said” journalism, take this article in The New York Times from this morning, Should Athletes Eat Fat or Carbs?
The writer says that most athletes believe in building up with carbs for a workout, but maybe fats would be just as good or better. Once again the methodology was to go out and interview a bunch of people, string together truncated quotes, reach the desired word limit, hit “send” on the keyboard.
There is too much of this writing. In B2B as well as mainstream media. Let’s take a stand, or at least give a reasoned analysis.
