Category: Automation Impact on Jobs

Automation is the solution—not the problem—when it comes to job creation

Automation is the solution—not the problem—when it comes to job creation

Coming off a record year for sales of robot orders and shipments, Jeff Burnstein, President of the Association for Advancing Automation (A3; Ann Arbor, MI), noted that “automation played a vital role in spurring economic growth in the North American manufacturing and services industries in 2016. We anticipate accelerated growth based on smarter, more connected and more collaborative robots in the coming years.”

According to a 2016 year-end report from the Robotic Industries Association (RIA; Ann Arbor, MI), orders for robots in 2016 spiked 61% in assembly applications, nearly double the number for the food and consumer goods industries (32%). […]

VIDEO: How Industrial Automation Promotes Job Growth

VIDEO: How Industrial Automation Promotes Job Growth

There’s a widely held and erroneous perception that industrial automation is job killer, but in reality, it’s quite the opposite, said Jeff Burnstein, president of the Association for Advancing Automation (A3).

A3 recently released a whitepaper titled Working in the Automation Age: Sustainable Careers Today and into the Future , which discredits the theory that automation hurts jobs and promotes how modern men and women can find more meaningful, safer and more enjoyable work.

“The hysterical stories keep being printed in the media, but the robot we see doesn’t match the idea of robots being a job killer,” said Burnstein. “If […]

Focus on humans rather than robots

Focus on humans rather than robots

The technology tool Cannot be allowed to rule. – PHOTOCREO MICHAL BEDNAREK/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM In an era of jobless growth, automation is fraught with problems. A push to small rather than large businesses is called for

The Prime Minister wants every note given to Cabinet for approval to have a paragraph stating what implication the proposal will have for job creation, said Minister of Commerce and Industry Nirmala Sitharaman, in an interview. This is very good news. Because without faster and more widespread creation of livelihoods and jobs for its huge youth population, the country will be faced with large social and […]

Balancing out robots

Balancing out robots

Industrial automation good but beware of pitfall

The Maruti-Suzuki factory at Manesar is whirring at full capacity; 20,000 tonnes of steel every month come into this plant and over a 1,000 cars roll out of this single factory every day. It is also the factory that in 2012, made headlines for all the wrong reasons when a group of disgruntled workers set fire to an office block, murdering an executive in the process. The case against the workers was judged earlier this year and 13 of the guilty were given life sentences. An unintended consequence of the workers’ protest, however, […]

These workers have the most automated job in America, and they say they wouldn’t have it any other way

These workers have the most automated job in America, and they say they wouldn’t have it any other way

To add a simple date to a tombstone in the late 90s, Ron Richard, an engraver based in Southern Massachusetts, would trace the numbers onto a sheet of rubber and cut them out with an X-acto knife. By the time he’d placed the stencil onto the stone and run over it with his sandblaster (sand bounces off of the rubber portions of the stencil and carves rock exposed in the voids in between), about 20 minutes had passed.

Today, the same process takes Richard about five minutes. “It’s far, far different,” Richard says of his job nearly 20 years after […]

Maruti Suzuki partially replaces manpower with robots at its Manesar and Gurugram plants

Maruti Suzuki partially replaces manpower with robots at its Manesar and Gurugram plants

AFP Auto major Maruti Suzuki India Limited has deployed more than 100 C-series high-speed robots to work in welding for its upcoming variant of the Dzire. The country’s largest automaker is, in fact, fast moving towards automation, deploying at least one robot for every four workers at its Manesar and Gurugram factories in Haryana.

Rajiv Gandhi, the executive director (production) of Maruti Suzuki, told Mint , “We have around 2,500 robots at the Manesar facility. In total, including the Gurgaon plant, there must be around 5,000 robots.”

The robots are being used in the automated weld, paint and press shops, while […]

Robots, Automation, and Jobs: A Primer for Policymakers

Robots, Automation, and Jobs: A Primer for Policymakers

Robert D. Atkinson

There is considerable interest, if not consternation, about the potential effects of emerging technologies such as robotics and artificial intelligence on employment. There is also considerable confusion about the interaction between automation, technology, and jobs. Here are 13 key points that are important for policymakers to understand about that interaction.

Read Primer There is considerable interest, if not consternation, about the potential effects of emerging technologies such as robotics and artificial intelligence on employment. There is also considerable confusion about the interaction between automation, technology, and jobs. Here are 13 key points that are important for […]

Fourth industrial revolution

Fourth industrial revolution

The writer is a South Asia analyst at Albright Stonebridge Group in Washington D.C. BILL Gates made headlines earlier this year when he argued that robots taking away human jobs should be taxed. His argument is that governments have a responsibility to intervene in order to slow down the proliferation of automation, as it has the potential of creating mass unemployment. It is a sign of the times that the person who has made his fortune because of technological innovation is now arguing for the curtailment of coming technologies. Welcome to The Fourth Industrial Revolution.

The world has seen three […]

Agbots, next gen farming and how they can teach us about the future of work

Agbots, next gen farming and how they can teach us about the future of work

Technological unemployment is old news for farming. For hundreds, if not thousands, of years, people have left the land under the pressure of technological advance. Given the increased discussion about the future of work, the agricultural sector could offer some insight into what happens when machines take jobs.

This is even more true given the sector stands on the verge of another technological revolution, with artificial intelligence, algorithms, robots and other forms of automation set to realign its social and economic foundations. As with any change of this nature, there is likely to be unease but it is difficult to […]

Robots sweep across Maruti Suzuki’s shop floor

Robots sweep across Maruti Suzuki’s shop floor

For the new Maruti Suzuki Dzire, as many as 104 C-Series high-speed robots are being used for welding. New Delhi: Signalling the rising tide of automation in India, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd now has at least one robot for every four workers employed at its Manesar and Gurgaon car factories, the country’s largest.

Robots are deployed largely in the weld shop, the paint shop and the press shop, where automobile car bodies are shaped. The three are fully automated. Manual work is now done mostly in car assembly.

India’s largest carmaker is now buying C-series robots, which are smaller in size, […]