Okay so let us not pretend that every time we see something from Boston Dynamics, we don’t have nightmares. Not just me? Okay, good! That is not what this is about though. These days everything is about efficiency, everyone is asked to wear more hats. Departments are converging as well as industries and it can cause disruption and uncertainty.

I know I have got you all thinking about dancing robots now. Try to shut that out for a minute or two.

Chances are automation is a buzzword whatever you do. I want to drop the “A” word and look at this differently. Things are moving and changing at a frightening rate and we would not think twice about removing bottlenecks, streamlining processes, removing manual tasks, mitigating risk, and diminishing errors. Often, this is accomplished by automating part of or all of a process.

Sounds great… can we bring it back to manufacturing now please? Sure! Autodesk did some research that tells us employees spend around 20 hours on non-productive activity per week. So what is causing your business pain?  From printing PDFs, responding to customer inquiries, too much work for the CNC’s or maybe even stock management. I will not go on but rather allow you to think about what is holding you and your organisation back.

Getting processes and time management right is the single most important thing to help us always do our job to the best of our ability. Alright, most of the time. There is plenty of clichés, but we have all seen the following image before. I see automation as a form of innovation personally. You certainly want to find yourself in the first 50%.

So, are the robots after my job? In conclusion, no. We need to learn to work with, not instead of, robotics. A study by “Statistics Canada” carried out over 20 years found firms adopting robotics tend to hire more, not fewer, workers. In my opinion, I believe this will apply to all automation. Businesses that invest and innovate will grow, so will their workforce and financial stability.

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