Tag: Technical

Letter: Automation rapidly changing 21st century workplace

The Trump cult is similar to followers of Benito Mussolini or Juan Peron who both made disastrous promises to restore "greatness." These Trump followers are devoid of facts of American business management trends in the real world.

President Trump promised to bring back the coal industry. Coal mining is now a highly-automated industry requiring far fewer miners than in decades past. However, Trump never discusses the fact that cheap abundant natural gas is replacing coal along with renewable sources. Modern combined-cycle natural gas plants are nearly twice as efficient as our older single-cycle coal power plants.

Most of our coal plants […]

WVU professor: NAFTA renegotiations ‘might even make things worse’ for state

WVU professor: NAFTA renegotiations 'might even make things worse' for state

MORGANTOWN – The devil might be in the details of a Trump administration-renegotiated North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that could end up hurting West Virginia even if it benefits the rest of the nation, a West Virginia University law professor said during a recent interview.

"West Virginia needs jobs, and NAFTA isn’t the problem," WVU Law Professor Alison Peck said during a The West Virginia Record email interview. "If we focus on fighting NAFTA we will lose our opportunity to demand that the federal government provide real support for business innovation here in West Virginia that will move our […]

Bad News: Automation Will Terminate Many Millennial Jobs

Bad News: Automation Will Terminate Many Millennial Jobs

Terminator Genisys Millennials supporting the minimum wage hike trends better rethink themselves, because a new report from Gallup shows that many of those entry-level jobs will be terminated by robots. No telling if they’ll be back. A Gallup study said that 37 percent of millennials are at “high risk” of being replaced by either artificial intelligence (AI) or automation. The news is slightly better at 32 percent for Generation X and Baby Boomers. The five percent divergence rate is because millennials lack work experience, where older generations are more likely to hold higher-ranking positions. The study said that only […]

Robots That Make 400 Burgers an Hour May Soon Take over Fast Food Restaurants

Robots That Make 400 Burgers an Hour May Soon Take over Fast Food Restaurants

Next time you go for a burger, it might not be a high school student that takes your order, rather an AI might ask if you want cheese on your patty. Introducing the BurgerBot. Invented by Momentum Machines , the bot is ready to totally change the way we know burgers.

You don’t need to worry about the line cook messing up your order any more. The BurgerBot is a totally automated burger creating machine! The machine can pump out 400 burgers an hour. But not just any 400 burgers, all the burgers can be made with fresh ground beef, […]

In the Age of Automation, Where Will Workers Fit Into the Future of Manufacturing?

In the Age of Automation, Where Will Workers Fit Into the Future of Manufacturing?

Humans can’t execute simple tasks with the speed and consistency computers can. Humans can’t execute simple tasks with the speed and consistency computers can. Bill Pugliano/Getty Images

Humans can’t execute simple tasks with the speed and consistency computers can. Bill Pugliano/Getty Images

Just a few years ago, the prevailing strategy in labor-dependent industries was to move production offshore. Cheap overseas labor increased the competitiveness and profitability of a typical manufacturing business.But that strategy is becoming harder to justify. As automated machinery takes the place of human workers, the cost benefits of offshore production are diminishing quickly. Interestingly, today’s U.S. manufacturing output […]

Rockwell and Manpower team up to train new generation of digital-age manufacturing workers

Rockwell and Manpower team up to train new generation of digital-age manufacturing workers

(Photo: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel files) The next generation of digital-age manufacturing workers will need to be tech-savvy and able to sync with artificial intelligence.

Such workers are deemed essential for any industrial economy that wants to be competitive, including manufacturing-heavy Wisconsin.

And they are in woefully short supply.ManpowerGroup Inc., a global staffing firm, and Rockwell Automation Inc., which supplies tech-driven industrial productivity systems, on Tuesday announced they are collaborating to train what they call a new breed of “advanced digital manufacturing” workers.The two Milwaukee-based companies promise to focus on U.S. military veterans who are re-entering the civilian workforce. Rockwell and Manpower […]

Customer service should mimic the 5 levels of autonomous cars

Customer service should mimic the 5 levels of autonomous cars

Image Credit: Shutterstock / Melpomene

In 1900, 41 percent of the U.S. workforce was employed in agriculture . By the year 2000, that number had dropped to 1.9 percent. This massive shift in labor was mostly due to advances in technology and mechanization, allowing for fewer people to create more crop. In the 21st century, other sectors will see the same kind of shift, with automation and AI at its heart.

Many industries are already going through a similar process. Manufacturing may be a lost cause already, with industrial robots, higher efficiency, and lost jobs, but two other industries — self-driving […]

Canadian Cities And Industries Most At Risk From Automation

Canadian Cities And Industries Most At Risk From Automation

About 46 per cent of the work done in Canada is at risk of being taken by machines, according to a report that seeks to identify the industries and places across the country that are most vulnerable to automation.

The report from the Brookfield Institute for Innovation + Entrepreneurship doesn’t argue that automation is a bad thing.

“In the long run, technology has often helped to produce more jobs than it destroyed,” researchers Creig Lamb and Matthew Lo wrote. Jobs in food services and accommodation are at greatest risk of automation in Canada, with 69 per cent of the work done […]

RISE of the ROBOT

RISE of the ROBOT

A four-part look at how robots are changing the way we work. First up, robots aren’t killing jobs, they’re creating new ones and more of them
— at least at a GE Aviation plant in Quebec

By Drew Hasselback in Bromont, Que.
About 180 robots here are doing work that humans used to do at a GE Aviation plant that makes parts for jet engines. But they haven’t replaced the humans. Indeed, the opposite is true. Since a new, automated section of the plant ramped up at the start of the decade, the number of people working here […]

The robots are coming for our jobs but Deloitte’s COO doesn’t think it’s that scary

The robots are coming for our jobs but Deloitte's COO doesn't think it's that scary

Herwig Prammer/Reuters The robots are coming for our jobs.

As reported by Business Insider’s Elena Holodny , 47% of total US employment is at high risk of automation in the next ten to twenty years, according to an Oxford report .

To be sure, that doesn’t mean that those jobs will definitely be automated.A top executive at Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, or Deloitte as it is commonly called, thinks the coming wave of automation is not something people should fear.Frank Friedman is the global chief operating officer of the 172-year-old financial firm known for its audit and consulting services. In his […]