Automation can boost productivity when it targets valuable work, not waste. Jobs won't disappear but shift from routine tasks to thinking and strategy roles. Fully automated factories are still years away, especially for midsize manufacturers without the capital to build them.
Do you feel that these technologies and Industry 4.0 could sort of take away a bit of that burden and allow less people to do more?
Well, absolutely. There's a lot of productivity to be had through automation, assuming that you don't automate waste. So you want to make sure you've got your methods down and what are the key parameters that add value. So I think there definitely is productivity to be had. From Industry 4.0. The piece that becomes emotional for people is they think that their jobs are going to be replaced by technology. And the experience that I've had so far is, yes, you can do more with less, but you're still going to need people. There's still a long way to go before we've got a fully automated factory, particularly in midsize markets where some of this is not necessarily affordable to put a whole system in place. And people's jobs are going to evolve. And we're going to be able to take away what were more manual, purely manual jobs and make them more thinking type jobs, more where you interact and where people can work on the business, not in the business. So I think there's just tremendous opportunity to help. continue to develop meaningful jobs in manufacturing as these technologies get employed.
