Tag: mobility

US manufacturers have jobs to fill. Finding workers here at home is the problem

US manufacturers have jobs to fill. Finding workers here at home is the problem

A worker wearing a protective mask and gloves assembles face shields at the Cartamundi-owned Hasbro manufacturing facility in East Longmeadow, Massachusetts, U.S., on Wednesday, April 29, 2020. Omar Asali is chairman and CEO of Ranpak Holdings Corporation, based in Concord Township, Ohio. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. As CEO of a global manufacturing company, I am focused on our personnel and hiring needs. Our business is defined by our people, and our workforce is crucial to our success. When we can’t find the talent we need, our organization’s potential stagnates.

Recently, at one of our US […]

3 Questions: Christine Walley on evolving perception of robots in US

3 Questions: Christine Walley on evolving perception of robots in US

Anthropologist touches on the history of tech-related job displacement and explores how other countries approach policies on robots, skills, and learning. Christine Walley, professor of anthropology and member of the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future, explores how robots have often been a symbol for anxiety about AI and automation. Christine J. Walley, professor of anthropology at MIT and member of the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future, explores how robots have often been a symbol for anxiety about artificial intelligence and automation. Walley provides a unique perspective in the recent research brief […]

3 Questions: Christine Walley on the evolving perception of robots in the US

3 Questions: Christine Walley on the evolving perception of robots in the US

Christine J. Walley, professor of anthropology at MIT and member of the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future, explores how robots have often been a symbol for anxiety about artificial intelligence and automation. Walley provides a unique perspective in the recent research brief “Robots as Symbols and Anxiety Over Work Loss.” She highlights the historical context of technology and job displacement and illustrates examples of how other countries approach policies regarding robots, skills, and learning. Here, Walley provides an overview of the brief.

Q: How are robots seen as a symbol when we think about […]

Fast-Tracking Warehouse Automation

Fast-Tracking Warehouse Automation

Warehouse in the News Fast-Tracking Warehouse Automation U.S. industrial real estate shines during Q3, reports JLL Lift Truck Tech: Trends Converge Around Labor Efficiencies Re-examining lift truck power structure The Future of Inventory Management More Warehouse News Warehouse & DC Best Practices: Achieving the Right Balance of Labor and Technology Could a warehouse/DC partner bring the right expertise in balancing labor, technology and cost management to your organization?
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COVID-19 is demonstrating the vital role that logistics plays in modern societies. Increasing customer demands and expectations are calling for flexible, 24-hour distribution solutions from all supply […]

Webinar: Humans – Plus Machines – Key to Secure Workforce

Webinar: Humans – Plus Machines – Key to Secure Workforce

By L. C. Leach III

The answer was a simple ‘No’ to this question: In the future, will humans be replaced in the manufacturing workplace by machines?

The question was the intended subject of the Greenville Chamber of Commerce’s webinar Oct. 22.But guest consultant David Clayton, executive director for Clemson University’s International Center for Automotive Research (CU-ICAR) in Greenville, explained to an online audience of about 30 that the future of manufacturing in the Upstate will continue to involve both machines and humans.“Automation, robotics, or even artificial intelligence and thinking machines is about precision,” Clayton said. “BMW, for example has hired […]

How will the future of work evolve?

How will the future of work evolve?

The pandemic has brought the future forward, and at the forefront of change is the very idea and nature of work.

Image: Alamy

For the largest part of human history, humans worked for their own and their family’s survival and lived life on a day-to-day basis, much like the others in the animal kingdom. Agriculture and domestication of livestock changed that. With some becoming feudal landlords who started indulging in slaving others—perhaps the earliest form of a man working for another. Human living, thus, got delinked from time. Industrial revolution further changed the landscape with evolving sophisticated employment models […]

Algorithms Are Making Economic Inequality Worse

Algorithms Are Making Economic Inequality Worse

HBR Staff/Oleksandr Shchus/Getty Images The risks of algorithmic discrimination and bias have received much attention and scrutiny, and rightly so. Yet there is another more insidious side-effect of our increasingly AI-powered society — the systematic inequality created by the changing nature of work itself. We fear a future where robots take our jobs, but what happens when a significant portion of the workforce ends up in algorithmically managed jobs with little future and few possibilities for advancement?

One of the classic tropes of self-made success is the leader who comes from humble beginnings, working their way up from the mailroom, […]

Should Automation Be Feared?

Should Automation Be Feared?

Does automation put people out of work?

Economists, politicians and union leaders have been asking this question for as long as I can remember. And it’s a legitimate concern.

Consider driverless vehicles.In the last 16 years, since the first DARPA Grand Challenge was held in the Mojave Desert, the race to develop a fully autonomous vehicle has been on.More than two dozen companies are working on it. The current leader is Alphabet’s Waymo, whose fleet of 600 vehicles has logged in more than 20 million miles. (Waymo stands for “a new way forward in mobility.”) And although we are not there […]

Inclusive Growth? The Unequal Contribution of Globalisation and Automation to Local Jobs

Inclusive Growth? The Unequal Contribution of Globalisation and Automation to Local Jobs

Photo by Remy Gieling on Unsplash Welcome to REDI-Updates. REDI-Updates is a bi-annual publication which will get behind the data and translate it into understandable terms. WM REDI staff and guest contributors will discuss various topics, with this first publication focusing on how inclusive growth can be a tool to tackle regional imbalances across the UK. In this article, Dr Raquel Ortega-Argiles and Nikolaos Terzidis discuss some of the factors behind the declining employment of low skill workers compared to high skilled workers and uneven wage growth across different skill groups.

In recent decades, employment restructuring in the industrialised […]

Autonomous vehicles will probably remain parked until 2030

Autonomous vehicles will probably remain parked until 2030

via Flickr © hillman54 (CC BY 2.0) Autonomous vehicles, along with remote surgery, used to be the standard exemplars of the wonders of 5G back in the… well just a few years ago. Remote surgery has been poo-pooed and has left the stage. But you may have noticed that the autonomous vehicle noise level has diminished recently. So where have the autonomous vehicles gone?

They appear to have parked themselves under a tarpaulin marked “Don’t remove until 2030 (or maybe longer)”.

The time when our cars will drive us rather than us drive them seems to have receded into the distance […]