by Gary Mintchell | Mar 11, 2016 | Automation, Workforce
I just read yet another survey where people think we won’t have any manufacturing jobs in 50 years (or pick your number). Robots and automation will do everything. We will all just sit around, be poor and miserable–except for the few owners.
That begs one essential question. If no one has money to buy things, then what will manufacturing produce? Think about it. Who would be able to buy gasoline, dish washing detergent, Oreo cookies? What we have is a virtuous circle: people have jobs -> people have money -> they buy things -> companies develop new things for them to buy -> people work at those companies to develop and manufacture things -> people have jobs-> etc.
We’ve invested in automation and robots for years. Productivity has not necessarily gone up as a direct result. Read between the lines of yesterday’s post from MAPI.
I’m not arguing from some abstract economic theory. Nor am I sanguine about automation. Nor from a Luddite point of view.
Automation and robots have replaced workers. But if you were in manufacturing plants prior to 1970 and then returned in 2000, you’d have been shocked. Jobs that literally destroyed the bodies of the workers over time had been redesigned such that repetitive lifting of 50 lb. to 75 lb. objects all day, for example, were no longer done manually. Manufacturing jobs that put people in harms’ way were now done with robots. People were moved to safety.
Plants are healthier, cleaner, safer than ever thought possible. Manufacturing jobs that remain are better paying, more satisfying, and safer than before.
Then let’s look at the human spirit. We were made to create.
I have visited the old city dump in Tijuana. A veritable city exists in the dump. People had no where to go. They moved to the dump. They scrounged around and found things with which to build simple houses. The last time I was there I was amazed. People (probably women) had done many things to make those shacks in the dump livable. I saw curtains of a type on the windows. People trying to plant flowers. I wondered how many people were electrocuted climbing up utility poles to tap into the electrical grid so that their house could have some electrical appliances.
It’s a dump. It’s a terrible place to live. The human spirit of the people was amazing. They made the best of what they had.
I didn’t grow up in an upper middle class enclave. I grew up in a small town where all social classes (OK, we didn’t have many of them) mingled. I hung out with “rednecks” as an adolescent. Guys that drank cheap beer and worked on cars. They could do mechanical things that few today can do. Sort of the spirit of the old blacksmiths who build all manner of things for people.
The spirit to build and create is human. We can organize a macro economy any way we want. We’ll still have people figuring out things to do to help people and figuring out ways to do it.
by Gary Mintchell | Feb 19, 2016 | Automation, News, Organizations
Few conversations or panels at the recently completed ARC Industry Forum touched directly on discrete automation. That is, with one notable exception. Robotics. Several people brought up a surge in orders for industrial robotics.
Aside from human-robot collaboration, not much has been exciting in the industrial space. I keep hoping for some advances using some of the innovation being explored in the consumer space.
But I looked up the latest from the Robotic Industries Association (RIA) and learned that robot orders and shipments in North America set new records in 2015. A study of the numbers, though, reveals that the drivers were the same old drivers–automotive industry with coating/dispensing, material handling, and spot welding leading the charge.
Industrial Robotic Sales
A total of 31,464 robots valued at $1.8 billion were ordered from North American companies during 2015, an increase of 14% in units and 11% in dollars over 2014. Robot shipments also set new records, with 28,049 robots valued at $1.6 billion shipped to North American customers in 2015. Shipments grew 10% in units and nine percent in dollars over the previous records set in 2014.
The automotive industry was the primary driver of growth in 2015, with robot orders increasing 19% year over year. Non-automotive robot orders grew five percent over 2014. The leading non-automotive industry in 2015 in terms of order growth was Semiconductors and Electronics at 35%.
According to Alex Shikany, Director of Market Analysis for RIA, the fastest growing applications for robot orders in North America in 2015 were Coating and Dispensing (+49%), Material Handling (+24%), and Spot Welding (+22%). RIA estimates that some 260,000 robots are now at use in North American factories, which is third to Japan and China in robot use.
The recent record performance by the robotics market in North America is concurrent with falling unemployment. Last month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the unemployment rate in the United States reached 4.9%, its lowest level since February of 2008.
“Today there are more opportunities than ever before in the robotics industry,” said Jeff Burnstein, President of RIA. “The continuing growth in robotics is opening many new job opportunities for people who can program, install, run, and maintain robots. In fact, if you look closer at the jobs discussion, automation is helping to save and create jobs. A lot of companies tell us they wouldn’t be in business without robotics and related automation.”
Burnstein noted that the RIA and its sister group AIA – Advancing Vision + Imaging, are seeing the impacts of the growth in demand for automation in upcoming events like the International Collaborative Robots Workshop and The Vision Show, slated for May 3-5, 2016 in Boston.
“Collaborative robots are the hottest topic in robotics today, and we are expecting a strong turnout in Boston for the workshop,” he said. “With interest in vision and imaging at an all-time high, AIA expects its flagship trade show, The Vision Show, to draw record attendance this year,” Burnstein added. Visit Robotics Online and Vision Online respectively for more information on these two collocated events.
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 12, 2015 | Automation, Internet of Things, Manufacturing IT, Networking, News, Operations Management, Security, Technology
Cisco held a Global Editors’ Conference during which I was traveling and could not attend. However, here is news gleaned from the press releases and other sources.
Cisco has been building partnerships in the industrial and manufacturing space for quite some time. Emerson partnered as part of its wireless solutions. Rockwell Automation has become a valued partner even reselling Cisco switches and routers in industrially hardened configurations.
Rockwell has also partnered with Fanuc, the robot and CNC supplier. The primary reason for the partnership I would guess would be that each helps the other penetrate more deeply into some large accounts such as GM. However, the Fanuc on the technology front has developed EtherNet/IP connectivity for its products. This enables them to share data on a standard Ethernet network.
Connectivity between Rockwell and Fanuc products along a Cisco Ethernet platform becomes interesting. Indeed, note the announcement below where Fanuc is now partnering directly with Cisco.
Cisco postulates that forty percent of today’s leading companies will be displaced from their market position by digital disruption in the next five years, yet 75 percent of these companies have yet to address this risk by prioritizing their digital strategy, according to research conducted by the Global Center for Digital Business Transformation.
To help customers navigate this important transition. Cisco is introducing four new digital solutions for industries – manufacturing, transportation, utilities, and oil and gas. The solutions aim to help customers connect machines and assets, break through information silos, and digitize data in an integrated way across the business.
Additionally, Cisco is announcing a new, industrial Internet of Things (IoT) security solution. Customers will use the Cisco IoT System Security and professional services from Cisco and partners to mitigate the risk of system disruption – and efficiently assure compliance.
Removing Barriers to Efficiency
To remain competitive, industries like manufacturing, utilities, oil and gas, and transportation need to increase productivity, deliver more value, and create better experiences for customers and end users. Some of the greatest obstacles to efficiency are operational silos. Silos separate people, machines, systems, information, and complete areas of a business; they separate information from operational technology. Breaking through silos with a more holistic and connected architecture connects people, streamlines communication and drives a more agile operation.
Four New Digital Solutions:
- Connected Machines for Digital Manufacturing: A connected architecture that redefines secure, efficient, and visible operations. This solution enables rapid, standards-based, repeatable machine connectivity, and global factory integration while enabling OEM digitization and new business models – including highly secure remote access, monitoring and serviceability of machines. FANUC America and Cisco announced that they intend to implement the solution to enable robot connectivity and analytics for proactive maintenance. At an event in San Jose, high-tech manufacturer Flex outlined how it is already using the Connected Machines solution and FANUC Robots to drive efficiency and quality in its operations. Cisco is also today announcing a series of attractively priced solution bundles to simplify and accelerate infrastructure digitization for customers for the Factory Network, Factory Wireless and Factory Security.
- Smart Connected Pipeline for Digital Oil and Gas: A connected, highly secure architecture that allows oil and gas companies more control over their pipelines, helping to protect assets from accidents or cyber-attacks. Operations are safer, more efficient – and more secure. Schneider Electric and Cisco are collaborating to bring the Smart Connected Pipeline solution to market, and are already working with customers such as Italian multinational oil and gas company, ENI.
- Substation Security for Digital Utilities: A connected and timely architecture that enables highly-secure power grids for reliable, more efficient service across the utilities industry. Now, more than ever, the nation’s power grid needs additional layers of safety and security. Utility companies in North America must comply with the North American Electric Reliability Corporation Critical Infrastructure Protection (NERC/CIP) Version 5 mandated standards. South Carolina utility SCANA will be the first to deploy Cisco’s Substation Security Solution – a solution designed to enable utilities to comply with these regulations.
- Connected Mass Transit for Digital Transportation: A connected architecture that will enable the delivery of greater safety, mobility – and a better passenger experience. Through a converged network architecture that is based on the Cisco IoT System, transit systems can enhance automation, collaboration, video, cloud-to-fog agility and business intelligence. From the management control center to the transit station – onto the roads, the rails, and onboard mass transit vehicles themselves – the Cisco solution puts safety and security first. Situated on the River Danube, the Austrian City of Linz is implementing the solution to streamline operations across its tram network.
- IoT System Security: The IoT System Security product-portfolio helps deliver highly secure connectivity, visibility and control to assure that IoT initiatives deliver competitive advantage for customers across all verticals. The Cisco IoT System Security product portfolio includes IoT-specific security with the introduction of a new, dedicated security appliance (ISA-3000 for application visibility, policy enforcement and threat defense) and a Fog Data Services security solution. With today’s announcement, the IoT network can now act as a sensor and enforcer to provide security policy enforcement within router and switches. It also provides solutions for IoT physical security with video surveillance cameras, physical access control, and video surveillance manager with advanced security analytics. Cisco will continue to expand its IoT System security offering through additional developments and collaboration with key ecosystem partners, including Rockwell Automation.
A Few Quotes
Rick Schneider, North America CEO, FANUC: “Preventing unplanned downtime is a huge savings for our customers and makes the FANUC robots with ZDT a tremendous value. With Cisco, we are helping our customers access this new value and also re-imagining our go-to-market strategy for after-sales service and support. This has the potential to have the biggest impact of anything I’ve seen in my 35-year career.”
Murad Kurwa, Senior Vice President of Engineering, Advanced Engineering Group at Flex: “Cisco’s vision of the power of Industrial IoT was realized through joint collaboration using automation as the enabler. With Universal Mechanical Assembly process partnering with FANUC, we are now able to get data to create a pool of knowledge. This helps us take action through analytics and ultimately leads to a more robust ‘process’ performance – leading to a world class, smart factory.”
Ed Rodden, CIO, SugarCreek: “We are using Cisco’s Connected Machines solution as we build our new 418,000 square foot factory of the future. Cisco’s new Industrial IoT platform will provide us the ability to use all our company’s available pieces of data, including video and security, from all kinds of devices and to tie them all together to drive more operational efficiency in the new factory.”
Sujeet Chand, Sr. Vice President & CTO, Rockwell Automation: “The Cisco IoT System Security solution will make an immediate impact for customers by accelerating secure IT-OT convergence with an end-to-end security solution, simplifying compliance and mitigating threat vectors. Together with Cisco, we are helping industrial operations maintain the integrity and confidentially of their network in support of holistic enterprise risk management strategies throughout a Connected Enterprise.”
James Bielstein, CIO, Advanced Manufacturing Deployment for GE’s manufacturing facilities worldwide: “In order to start down the path to becoming a Brilliant Factory, the first step is to deploy a modern IT infrastructure. This infrastructure will give our plants the flexibility and security needed to develop a ‘digital thread’ from product design to shipping. Cisco is part of GE’s Brilliant Factory architecture.”
Georg Linhard, Project Manager for LINZ AG TELEKOM: “We decided to build on our existing Cisco network and channel its agility and simplicity to incorporate new security, mobile, and analytics technologies that help us achieve our goals and gain greater business insight.”
Patrick Albos, SVP, Oil and Gas Segment, Schneider Electric: “The Smart Connected Pipeline brings SCADA and IT infrastructure together in a converged, secure, easy to deploy and use platform, and brings significant business value in optimizing and reducing cost of pipeline operations.”
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.
