Tag: consumer

Manufacturing jobs are defying expectations

Manufacturing jobs are defying expectations

“NATION LONGS for one more day with dying manufacturing sector.” This headline, published in 2014 by the satirical website the Onion , anticipated both President Donald Trump’s fears and the retorts he gets from his critics. Mr Trump campaigned on a promise to bring back jobs in manufacturing after decades of decline. To those who see the future of the American economy in services, these promises seemed backward. When he was head of the National Economic Council, Gary Cohn reportedly asked the president which he would prefer: sitting in nice air-conditioned office, or standing on his feet all day.

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Embracing plant management software: Tetra Pak launches Plant Secure and Industry 4.0

Embracing plant management software: Tetra Pak launches Plant Secure and Industry 4.0

The process begins with a detailed audit of the producers operations, allowing Tetra Pak to produce suggestions that will allow for cost-saving suggestions throughout the entire operation. Credit: Courtesy of Tetra Pak Plant Secure will form a key aspect of what Tetra Pak is calling Industry 4.0, the digitalisation of manufacturing which has moved it into a fourth industrialisation. Credit: Courtesy of Tetra Pak Tetra Pak has teamed up with Microsoft to use its HoloLens technology, which will allow companies to speed-up response times. Credit: Courtesy of Tetra Pak® Plant Secure

The process begins with a detailed audit […]

Don’t get left behind: Prof examines how big data, automation are revolutionizing the world of retail

Don’t get left behind: Prof examines how big data, automation are revolutionizing the world of retail

Mohammad Rahman. (Purdue University photo/John Underwood) Mohammad Rahman studies how technology is transforming people and businesses

Rahman says AI could exploit our biases rather than help us overcome them

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — As an international student from Bangladesh, Mohammad Rahman graduated with a degree in computer science shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.“Because of my name and the fact I was an F-1 international student, it was difficult to find a job,” said Rahman , now an associate professor in the Krannert School of Management at Purdue University and one of the 40 best professors under 40 […]

The rise of automation: Should retailers be worried?

The rise of automation: Should retailers be worried?

There’s plenty of talk over the rise of robots and automation in the retail sector, and the negative impacts are well known: En masse reductions of staff in warehouses and increasingly autonomous and anonymous customer care are just the beginning. However, in this feature we’ll be taking a step back from the emotive arguments behind automation’s rise in retail, and examining how retailers can embrace this shift without losing the human values that have stood them in good stead until now. While not yet a common sight, incremental changes towards robots replacing humans in stores are already being trialed […]

Companies Should Help You Retrain When You’re Automated Out of a Job

Companies Should Help You Retrain When You’re Automated Out of a Job

PureSolution/Shutterstock.com Reskilling is shaping up to be an imperative—and perhaps the imperative—of the next decade. That is because as machines increasingly complement people in the workplace, automation will bring about major shifts in both occupations and skills.

We estimate that if the pace of automation adoption is in the midpoint of our range of scenarios, about 15% of the global workforce, or 400 million workers, will be displaced by 203 0. (That range stretches from almost nobody, if automation adoption is slow, to 800 million, in the event of very rapid automation).

At the same time, as new technologies and the […]

Books: How Artificial Intelligence Will Impact Human Well-Being

Books: How Artificial Intelligence Will Impact Human Well-Being

The question of how artificial intelligence (AI) will impact human well-being is something of a Rorschach test. It depends on whom you ask. For some, the advent of “smart” everything portends a future of rising living standards and unimagined opportunities for human flourishing. Others help us see the dark side. Without going “full Terminator,” some of the best informed people in the AI field see an economic transformation that threatens social cohesion as human labor – mental and physical – becomes slow, antiquated and artisanal and is ultimately consolidated and replaced by the unlimited energy, dynamism, and rocketing productivity […]

In the future of work it’s jobs, not people, that will become redundant

In the future of work it’s jobs, not people, that will become redundant

I am likely stating the obvious but it needs to be stated as often as possible – the world is changing and it is changing fast. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is blurring the lines between the real and the technological world and challenging what it means to be human.

Yet people are clearly at the heart of all organizational transformations generated by this phenomenon. We see this, both in the transformation we are driving within Unilever but also when we look outside, across and beyond our industry.

All of this is affects how people will experience work, whether it’s new operating […]

In the future of work it’s jobs, not people, that will become redundant

In the future of work it’s jobs, not people, that will become redundant

World Bank/Chhor Sokunthea A garment industry worker sews garter to a skirt in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. This article is brought to you thanks to the strategic cooperation of The European Sting with the World Economic Forum .

I am likely stating the obvious but it needs to be stated as often as possible – the world is changing and it is changing fast. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is blurring the lines between the real and the technological world and challenging what it means to be human.

Yet people are clearly at the heart of all organizational transformations generated by this […]

China battles US for AI and robotic space: Who’s ahead?

China battles US for AI and robotic space: Who’s ahead?

Robot dominates: Ford F150 trucks go through robots on the assembly line at the Ford Dearborn Truck Plant in Dearborn, Michigan. Robots are also entering areas such as logistics warehousing, chemicals and plastics factories and F&B industries. — AFP NO doubt, the FAANGs – Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google – are making the world a better place.

Still, they are being accused of being BAADD – big, anti-competitive, addictive and destructive to democracy.

Regulators fine them, politicians take them to task, and even their backers warn of their power to cause harm. Much of the techlash is undeserved. There’s fake […]

Gen Z faces ‘tectonic forces’ as it enters workforce

Gen Z faces ‘tectonic forces’ as it enters workforce. Patrick Commins AFR Woodcut Every new generation shapes, and is shaped by, the economy they inherit.

The oldest of the cohort of Australians born between 1994 and 2000 – so-called Generation Z, at least by the rubbery standards applied by marketeers playing demographers – have now started careers and probably begun contemplating how their hopes and dreams line up with the opportunities available to them today.

At first blush, the picture looks rosy. The country has not suffered a recession in 27 years. Indeed, nobody under 45, and relatively few under 50, […]