Tag: consumer

In Andrews, hopes for more manufacturing jobs face an industry changed by technology

In Andrews, hopes for more manufacturing jobs face an industry changed by technology

By Wade Spees wspees@postandcourier.com ANDREWS — The history of this town’s economy is enshrined in a fading mural, right off the main intersection downtown.

Workers push big bales of cotton and move long strands to be spun into yarn and knit into fabric. Seamstresses sit side-by-side at sewing machines, stitching together garments. In an artistic flourish, finished T-shirts float above, dyed blue, green and yellow.

But a glimpse of the town’s future whirs away a few miles down the highway. Inside the expanding SafeRack factory, workers set laser-cut pipes together, and a robotic arm follows behind, welding them together to make […]

Can Trump bring back U.S. manufacturing jobs?

Candidate and now President Donald Trump has talked a lot about bringing well-paying manufacturing jobs back to the United States. As Trump sees it, the manufacturing sector in the U.S., once the standard-bearer that others sought to emulate, has now been brought to its knees with massive job losses. What and who are to blame for this saturnine state of affairs? The “what” is explained by international trade and the one-sided trade deals that feckless U.S. leaders have negotiated in the past. The “who” is still unclear, but it looks like it is nations like China and Mexico.

To remedy […]

Interview: The Automation Boom in Mexico

Interview: The Automation Boom in Mexico

Jeff Burnstein, President of A3, says Mexico may be the next global player in the automation arena, but the international skills gap could be problematic.

An assembly worker builds automation equipment at Festo’s new facility, which is strategically located to ship parts anywhere in North America, specifically to Mexico. Last year proved record-setting for robotics in terms of orders and shipments in North America, according to the Robotic Industries Association (RIA). A total of 34,606 robots valued at approximately $1.9 billion were ordered in North America—a 10% jump from 2015. Orders for robots spiked 61% in assembly applications […]

Technobabble: Automation and the modern worker

Technobabble: Automation and the modern worker

Technobabble is our look at the weird, wonderful and wildly creative aspects of technology and the tech industry. If you have any babble, feel free to email directly or reach out on Twitter .

For decades, pundits have discussed the plight of the American worker. Without fail, as technology has advanced and become more automated, some workers have been displaced.

Take the assembly line, for example. Workers en masse were employed to ensure every part of the manufacturing process kept up with industry standards. But as machines entered into the assembly line, work became automated and fewer employees were required, […]

Actors, teachers, therapists – think your job is safe from robots? Think again

Actors, teachers, therapists – think your job is safe from robots? Think again

In the battle for the 21st century workplace, computers are winning. And the odds of us puny humans making a comeback are not very good.

A January 2017 report from the McKinsey Global Institute estimated that roughly half of today’s work activities could be automated by 2055, give or take 20 years. (McKinsey helpfully offers a search portal to find out how likely you’ll be given the boot by a bot.)

Bottom line is robots want our jobs. And no one is going to build a wall around them or tariff them out of existence.In a way this is nothing new. […]

Automation Tend to Replace Human Workers in Karawang

Automation Tend to Replace Human Workers in Karawang

TEMPO.CO , Jakarta – Head of Karawang’s Manpower and Transmigration Agency, Ahmad Suroto, revealed that an increasing number of factories in Karawang are currently optimizing their assembly automation, which is the reason why they tend to reduce the number of their human resources.

“There’s a trend where companies utilize [automated assembly lines] instead of humans. Which is the reason why employment rate continues to decline each year,” Suroto said on Wednesday, February 8, 2017.

There are many newly established factories in Karawang, according to Suroto, but they’re dominated by automation process in its assembly line. Factories are increasingly attracted to robotics […]

What is the biggest threat to American jobs? Hint: It’s not immigrants

Several Super Bowl LI commercials on Sunday took a serious departure from the usual advertising sweet spots — to strike a much more political tone.

Both Coca-Cola and Budweiser put out spots that seemed to celebrate immigrants, and Airbnb produced an ad that seemed a direct rebuff to President Donald Trump’s travel restrictions on visitors from seven Muslim-majority countries.

While some of the ads fell flat , some progressives rushed to embrace their new favorite brands on Twitter.It’s easy to see why companies felt a need to stand up for immigrants at the moment, even at the risk of politicizing, as […]

Rise of the robots

Rise of the robots

From drones delivering your post to robotic chefs, automation looks set to eliminate a chunk of the workforce but could also free us from dangerous jobs. Ryan Fletcher asks what life side by side with machines will look like As the current masters of the universe mingled at the World Economic Forum in Davos at the start of the year, it became clear that the Silicon Valley executives in attendance were worrying about the havoc their hi-tech creations could wreak. But it wasn’t the prospect that their artificial intelligence tech would create a robot class capable of usurping them. […]

Nearshoring, Labor, and Automation

Nearshoring, Labor, and Automation

Robots Answer Shortage of Humans as Manufacturers Relocate

Nearshoring is reducing distances of shipments of export cargo and import cargo in international trade. Nearshoring —in which companies move production facilities closer to their consumer markets—is a phenomenon that appears to have found its footing.

A 2016 annual survey from Alix Partners of manufacturing and distribution companies in North America and western Europe found that 69 percent say they are considering nearshoring—up from 40 percent the year before. More than two-thirds say they’ve nearshored in the past three years or plan to do so in the coming three.One of the drivers […]

The Future of Manufacturing – Big or Small?

The Future of Manufacturing – Big or Small?

Bruce Morey Contributing Editor Taking stock of a surprising and challenging 2016, a number of trends may point to a future where manufacturing output increases while continuing to decentralize. This may give hope to a surprising future of a distributed economy that begins to erode the monolithic big manufacturing we have taken for granted.

One of the major themes of the surprising political campaigns of 2016 was the loss of manufacturing employment in North America in recent decades. That fact alone is undeniable, according to statistics from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. The cause of this decline apparently […]