A Successful Marriage of Machines and Human

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Why is automation even important? Bring overseas jobs back, more efficiency, reduce risks or all are what makes automation an integral part of our life. In the modern world, companies started to delegate more risky, repetitive and non-meaningful jobs to intelligent machines while increasing efficiency and decreasing labor cost. The cost of buying and installing intelligent machines are very expensive, however, it saves the companies millions of dollars especially on massive production in the long run.

There are several important aspects, that I know, that go into buying and installing machines and they are the appropriate level of automation, ergonomics and industrial robot selection. Sharples, past president of the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors, wrote "The current challenge for industry is to include human factors with engineering and technology developments in order to optimize how workforces and infrastructure are prepared for the transformation changes being brought about by augmented digitization and smart systems," The interaction between human and robots has to be done safely and the right applied ergonomics can ensure that. Keeping current with the rapid pace of technological change can definitely assure that you select the right industrial robot for your need at the right cost and at the right time.

There are plants that really do not need full automation because of their nature, the right technology has not yet arrived or the cost of full automation is not commensurate with the company's capital. Because of these reasons, one should consider the right level of automation that will optimize the operations in his/her company. I also think bringing automation step-by-step is better than fully automating the entire plant, system or you name it. The reason to do it one-by-one is that human nature resist change because of loss of control, the effort puts into learning the new system, uncertainty and more. Thus, bringing automation gradually can lessen the resistance to change and make the transition smooth and easy.

Here are couple videos that I would like to share with you, one from Amazon and the other one from Mercedes, that illustrate how automation can make operations way smoother and efficient without the human interaction.

References:

https://hbr.org/2012/09/ten-reasons-people-resist-chang

Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISE) magazine, volume 49 number 3