How the World's Biggest Companies Are Fine-Tuning the Robot Revolution
This article William Wilkes for the Wall Street Journal may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:
The big question surrounding automation has long been whether robots would compete with workers or help them. Initially, workers feared robots would destroy jobs across the economy. Scholarly research and real-life experience has eased that concern, although some types of workers and industries are ending up on the losing side.
Today, the question is more precise: In which industries does automation help both employer and employee?
The companies that may have cracked the code are those that can assign repetitive, precise tasks to robots, freeing human workers to undertake creative, problem-solving duties that machines aren’t very good at. That’s particularly relevant for manufacturing, the food sector and service sectors such as billing, where timetable spreadsheets can be automated, freeing up workers to do higher-value tasks.
With demand for Bosch-built steering controls high, the company has used automation to increase its output, leading it to hire more people to perform the type of checks Mr. Rösch conducts.
“We looked for 20,000 new hires last year,” a mix of new positions and replacement staff, said Stefan Assmann, one of the company’s chief engineers, to join Bosch’s total 400,000 employees. Bosch factories world-wide now make use of 140 robotic arms, up from zero in 2011. “We can’t see robots having a negative impact on our workforce,” Mr. Assmann said.
If robotics and automation are helping to improve productivity and leading to expanded employment then there must be another reason why factories have been closing and people losing their jobs. The answer is pretty simple when we hear of workers having to train their replacements from overseas before they are fired.
Globalisation has denuded previously vibrant economic areas of their employment bases and transplanted them to the emerging markets. If we have to look for one major source of the rise of populism then globalisation is where we need to start looking. That represented a significant issue in the 2016 Presidential election and it is likely to be remain an emotion sore point going forward and not least when this almost record long expansion rolls over.
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