Tag: consumption

Smart robots do all the work at Nissan’s ‘intelligent’ plant

Smart robots do all the work at Nissan's 'intelligent' plant

During the tour, giant mechanical arms equipped with large displays shone light from the displays on to the car’s surfaces from various angles so that cameras could detect the tiniest flaws. Nissan ‘s "intelligent factory" hardly has any human workers. The robots do the work, including welding and mounting. They do the paint jobs and inspect their own paint jobs.

“Up to now, people had to make production adjustments through experience, but now robots with artificial intelligence, analysing collected data, are able to do it. The technology has developed to that level,” Nissan Executive Vice President Hideyuki Sakamoto said during […]

By 2030 Warehouse Robots Market to Hit $51 Billion

By 2030 Warehouse Robots Market to Hit $51 Billion

Fueled by labor shortages and increased order volume, automation in the warehouse continues to increase. In addition to technology solutions such as Augmented Reality (AR) powered smart glasses and handheld devices with enhanced capabilities, autonomous, collaborative, and mobile robots are proving to be the most popular and fastest-growing productivity-enhancing solution in the warehouse workspace.

According to ABI Research, global commercial robot revenue in warehouses will have a compounded annual growth rate (of over 23% from 2021 to 2030 and exceed $51 billion by 2030.

"Mobile robots are at the heart of the warehouse robotics market and account for most shipments and […]

Book Review: The spectre of permanent technological unemployment haunts SA

Book Review: The spectre of permanent technological unemployment haunts SA

Before I finished this review, I filled a vehicle with petrol at my local service station. An apt name, because services are indeed provided. An attendant will pump the petrol and wash your windscreen. Oil, water and tyre pressure can also be checked.

First published in the Daily Maverick 168 weekly newspaper.

This was the state of affairs when I grew up in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. I did not pump “gas”, as we call it, myself but a number of my friends and acquaintances had part-time or summer jobs doing so. It was a significant source of employment […]

Influential Voices On The Future Of Work: Rania Hoteit, Multi-Award Winning Manufacturing Technology Entrepreneur

Rania Hoteit hosted as VIP Keynote Speaker at Pivot Towards Your Purpose Conference- Portrait shot Photography by Taylor Boone. Courtesy of Rania Hoteit Each month I feature different leaders’ voices offering insights into the future of work and changes they’ve seen within their industry since the pandemic. I’m particularly interested in leaders that approach challenges as opportunities to create positive and lucrative business ventures. This column profiles everyone from celebrities and business people, to community leaders and changemakers, and gives readers a peek behind the veil of different businesses and industries.

This month I interviewed Rania Hoteit, who […]

Americans — Especially Democrats, High Earners and the Highly Educated — Are Warming Up to Automation

Americans — Especially Democrats, High Earners and the Highly Educated — Are Warming Up to Automation

The pandemic has ushered in an unintended consequence for workers across the country: an expedited timeline for more widespread adoption of automation. To account for the possibility of sick workers, companies have made investments in robotics and artificial intelligence .

This trend is something Americans are increasingly likely to embrace, new polling indicates.

A Morning Consult survey conducted May 25-29 among 2,199 U.S. adults found that the public has slightly warmed to the notion that automation will increase job opportunities, with Democrats, those making more than $100,000 annually and people with graduate degrees fueling that movement.One in 4 respondents in the […]

Why automation and flexible jobs could lead to more meaningful work

Why automation and flexible jobs could lead to more meaningful work

As remote working becomes more prevalent, companies can now hire employees from anywhere in the world. Image credit – Pontus Wellgraf / Unsplash Driven by technological innovations, the so-called fourth industrial revolution of the past decade is changing the workplace. Thanks to digital technologies, jobs are becoming more flexible, with self-employment on the rise. New technologies are being adopted at an exponential pace , much faster than in previous waves of innovation, with technologies like artificial intelligence able to perform complex tasks.

Machines currently handle a third of all work tasks worldwide but that could increase to half by 2025 […]

Germany’s Auto Giants Are Going Electric — But It Won’t Save Jobs

Germany’s Auto Giants Are Going Electric — But It Won’t Save Jobs

Volkswagen employee checks an ID.3, a new electric model, in the light tunnel of the Transparent Factory in Dresden. (Photo by Matthias Rietschel / picture alliance via Getty Images) German auto production employs around eight hundred thousand people — with a further 1.8 million jobs indirectly linked to the industry. But even these figures don’t convey quite how important it really is. Apart from the fact that brands like Volkswagen are known the world over, the sector drives industrial knowhow upon which the German economy’s strength relies.

Today, the industry faces severe crisis. Tens of thousands were laid off last […]

The Future of Automation

The Future of Automation

Probably no one needs as much convincing regarding the future of automation and its impact on employment as Jason E. Smith and Aaron Benanav, who have recently authored the following two books: Smart Machines and Service Work: Automation in an Age of Stagnation and Automation and the Future of Work . Each serves as a calming antidote to the often hyperbolic pronouncements emanating from popular and scholarly accounts.

Remarkable about both books is the degree to which they cover the same terrain and use similar arguments to debunk a cult of automation that has excited nouveau-billionaires like Elon Musk while […]

Why Trump Still Has Millions of Americans in His Grip

Why Trump Still Has Millions of Americans in His Grip

Beginning in the mid-1960s, the priorities of the Democratic Party began to shift away from white working and middle class voters — many of them socially conservative, Christian and religiously observant — to a set of emerging constituencies seeking rights and privileges previously reserved to white men: African-Americans, women’s rights activists, proponents of ethnic diversity, sexual freedom and self-expressive individualism.

By the 1970s, many white Americans — who had taken their own centrality for granted — felt that they were being shouldered aside, left to face alone the brunt of the long process of deindustrialization: a cluster of adverse economic […]

What Does Differential Wage Growth Tell Us About The Future Of Work In India?

What Does Differential Wage Growth Tell Us About The Future Of Work In India?

India manufacturing jobs (MANPREET ROMANA/AFP/GettyImages) India, after liberalisation reforms, has seen consistent economic growth and diversification, leading to increased employment and growth in wages. During this period, technology adoption in Indian industry and influx of foreign technology has increased too, as the economy opened up for global capital and import of foreign technology.

These factors have induced fundamental changes in India’s labour dynamics. (Under)Employment & Economic Productivity

Indian labour has always been agrarian in nature. Agriculture employs more people than any other sector even today. Liberalisation of the economy in the 1980s showed early signs of de-agrarianism of Indian labour, […]