New technology in industry: automation, robots and the workplace

When did a robot first go to work in a factory, and what job did it take? The obvious guess is the last twenty years, once computers got clever. It was nineteen sixty-one, at a General Motors car plant in New Jersey. Unimate, the robot arm, lifted hot metal castings from a machine and stacked them: hot, dangerous work a person had done. What happened to that person's job? That worker's answer comes after a walk round the new factory floor.

Automation means machines doing a task with little or no human input. A robot is a programmable machine that moves and handles things: welding car bodies, spraying paint, picking and packing, stacking pallets. Robots change how a workplace is organised. A working robot sits inside a fenced safety cell, with light guards, invisible beams that stop the robot if anyone steps through. So the floor is laid out in cells and routes for materials, not rows of benches. Where do the people stand while a robot cell is running, and what does that allow? Outside the cell. They supervise from beyond the fence, and with no one in the cell, the line can keep going at night. Buildings change too. Robots and tall racking suit large single-storey sheds with high roofs and smooth, level floors. Electronics may need clean, controlled rooms. An area with few people in it needs less heating and lighting. And the design office can sit in a separate building, far from the making. Tools and equipment change as well. Hand saws and manual machines give way to CNC machines, laser cutters and 3D printers, and to digital measuring and scanning equipment. How each one works belongs to the videos on computer-aided design and manufacture; here the question is what each lets the firm do. One examiner's report, on a question about emerging technologies in manufacturing, notes that the best responses focused on how the use of emerging technologies allow products to be simulated, tested and modified before manufacturing takes place saving time and expense. The habit to copy: name what the new tool lets the firm do, then what that saves. A 3D printer lets a team test a part before paying for a production run, which saves time and money.

For the firm, automation brings speed and sameness. Output is faster and more consistent, there are fewer errors, robots take on dangerous or repetitive jobs, and the line can run twenty-four hours a day. What is the catch for a firm that fills its floor with robots? Cost. Robots are expensive to buy and to maintain, and if the system fails, everything waits until it is fixed. Then there are the jobs. Fewer people are needed for repetitive manual work. New skilled jobs appear: programming the robots, maintaining them and supervising the line. And the people in between must retrain to move into those jobs. A car maker fits welding robots to its body shop. One statement says the line will need more people to operate it. Another says fewer manual welding jobs, but more jobs for technicians who programme and maintain them. Another says more workers skilled with hand tools. The last says the welds will be less consistent. Which one statement about the welding robots is true? The second statement is the true one: fewer manual welding jobs, more technician jobs. Now the harder part: why is each of the other three wrong? More people to operate it fails, because the robot replaces the welders. Hand-tool skills fails, because the new skills are programming and maintenance. Less consistent welds fails, because a robot repeats the same weld the same way every time. A furniture workshop replaces its hand-operated saws and routers with a CNC router, and a robot arm that loads and unloads it. What are two ways this changes the workshop, each as a linked chain? Layout is one. The machines must sit inside a fenced safety cell with light guards, so the workshop floor is organised around the cell instead of rows of benches, and workers stay outside while it runs. Jobs and skills are the other. Fewer machinists are needed to cut parts by hand, but someone must now program the router and keep the robot running, so the workshop retrains staff or hires a technician. Each point has the same shape: the change, because of what, then what it means for this workshop.

Two habits shape how these answers read. The first is the side you answer from. A question about new technology in industry is answered from the factory and its workers, not from the person who buys the product. A student writes that robots make cars cheaper for families. Whose side is that on? The buyer's side, so it misses what was asked. From the firm's side, the same point is a lower cost to make each car. A report on a question about why designers and manufacturers need emerging technologies notes this: many candidate responses focused on the users of the product instead and did not gain marks. Before you write, check whose side the question asks for. That habit settles it: in an industry question, it is always the firm and its workers. The second habit is explaining one point fully. Two students answered this question: explain one disadvantage for workers when a packaging factory brings in robots. Answer one says: people lose their jobs and income, it costs a lot, and robots break down. Answer two says: robots now fill and seal the boxes, so the packers who did it by hand are no longer needed. Unless they retrain to run and maintain the robots, they lose their jobs. Which of these two explains the disadvantage, and why? The second. It takes one disadvantage and follows it through: what changed, who it affects, and what happens to them. The first lists three effects, one of them about the firm, and develops none. A different report says it in its own words. Most responses referred to loss of jobs, reduced income, profits, loss of income, however a linked justification was missing which meant the second mark could not be awarded. Naming job losses is only half of it. The way to finish the point is the linked justification: who loses the job, because of what change, and what happens to them next.

Time to see what has stuck from the factory floor.

A bakery adds a robot that boxes cakes all night. What is one change to its layout? The robot needs a fenced safety cell with light guards, so the floor is planned around the cell, with people kept outside it. Now the jobs: which one shrinks in that bakery, and which one appears? Packing by hand shrinks. Programming and maintaining the robot appears, and a packer could retrain into it. A different one: an industry answer says cakes get cheaper for shoppers. What is wrong? It answers from the buyer's side. An industry question wants the firm and its workers: a lower cost to make each cake. Here's the last: was Unimate good news or bad for the worker who lifted castings? Both. The robot took the hot, dangerous lifting job. New skilled jobs came with it, to program and maintain Unimate, and a worker who retrained could move into one.

If you could teach this one to a friend, layout, buildings, tools and jobs, tap the thumb and it counts as covered. If any of it is still hazy, park it in a playlist and give it a day.

Next in the chapter: New technology and people: changing job roles. Hopefully that's next in your feed, but if not, search for ScholaFly D T oh five, oh four.

Every other video is on scholafly.com too, easy to search by video code or by keyword. Whatever you're revising, go there and have a look, or, watch the next video.