Manufacturing futures
Some three decades ago, when American automakers felt threatened by Japanese competition, they had a vision of beating their rivals with ‘lights-out’ manufacturing – highly automated factories with robots building cars on their own. While this was still a dream, it was imagined that workweeks would be reduced and people would have much more leisure time.
But competitive globalisation had not been taken into account. Today, reduced headcount and increased leisure are not options; remaining employees are working harder than ever.
As Yogi Berra said, “It’s deja vu all over again”. Many of the new production methods in the next manufacturing revolution will require fewer people working in factories; some lights-out manufacturing is now possible.
Manufacturing will still need people, if not so many in the factory itself. Automated machines need people to design, program and service them. But, that takes skills and training. As manufacturing transforms into a high-tech workplace, the new generation of process and automation engineers and technicians will be completely different than the factory workers of yesteryear. Old-fashioned ideas about training and seniority will quickly become obsolete. Fast-growing skills shortages generate high demand for engineers and technicians. Tech power will trump everything else.
Today’s young people are smart, and even brash. They want to work; but unlike their parents, they do not want work to be their lives. If they can be attracted, they are the ones who will be the automation engineers and technicians of tomorrow.
Future workplaces – the equivalent of factories – will be bright and stimulating places where people enjoy working and jobs are challenging and rewarding. Knowledge workers do not need time cards, defined working hours or bosses. The word ‘boss’ is a relic of old-time, clock-punching factory-work.
The continuing manufacturing drive will be to make more with less – pack more information and knowledge into less matter, using less energy while making more effective products. Jobs will keep moving from manipulating matter to playing with information and ideas. Priorities will continue to shift.
Mobiles devices will hit the factory floor
Recently, I attended the annual Automation Control Products (ACP) conference. The primary objective of Thindustrial13 was the unveiling and introduction of the new ACP mobile technology software called Relevance.
I presented the keynote: ‘Mobile Devices will hit the Factory Floor’ to an audience that was mostly experienced factory and process control people. Many had already used ACP ThinManager for a few years and there was a visible sense of excitement from these usually hard-nosed plant engineer types.
Relevance has clear and immediate benefits and advantages. This is what the software provides: applications (content) delivered to factory people with relevance to their location, skill-set and the events occurring around them.
The old paradigm is fixed, tethered operator stations with way too much data and too little relevant information. This is fast becoming obsolete.
Relevance delivers mobile devices with specific information related to physical location in the factory, specifically related to the function of the person viewing the information. For example, real-time display of related information when the engineer is near a specific location, service flags for the packaging line showing what needs to be serviced and information related to which service people are available to perform the service.
Here’s the kicker that makes this exciting for factory people who are fed up with walking over to large central displays to find out what is happening and what is needed. They simply view a mobile device that provides specific information related to their own function and location. Nothing like this is available from any of the current automation majors.
There are key trends that are quickly emerging in the factory. In my keynote, I presented graphics that clearly illustrate digital technology shifts: the steady decline of tethered PCs and the rapid rise of mobile devices, wired to wireless connectivity, client-server to cloud-based computing and the industrial Internet.
Fundamental changes are occurring right now: change in use (mobile, relevant information everywhere) and in scale (huge numbers of mobile devices are available at low cost). It is industrial evolution that is quickly becoming a revolution.
A rapid paradigm shift is occurring in the factory. Entrenched HMI software businesses are staying afloat primarily by trying to maintain their steadily declining installed base. Alarm-bells are ringing for their sales channels.
Fast-growing Alpharetta-based ACP is the first to market with a complete mobile computing solution that fulfils the needs of factory users – the new mobile technology called Relevance.
Jim Pinto is an industry analyst and commentator, writer, technology futurist and angel investor. His popular e-mail newsletter, JimPinto.com eNews, is widely read (with direct circulation of about 7000 and web-readership of two to three times that number). His areas of interest are technology futures, marketing and business strategies for a fast-changing environment, and industrial automation with a slant towards technology trends.
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