When it comes to continuous monitoring for cybersecurity and its companion strategy of continuous diagnostics and mitigation federal agency practitioners need to be realistic about how they apply the words monitoring and continuous.

Thats according to Peter Schawacker, Director of Security Intelligence Solutions at Optiv, a cybersecurity products reseller.

Too often, he says, management presumes there will be eyes on glass and people watching stuff. In reality, that mode is really only operative during the hunting phase, after the network instrumentation signals something is wrong and its time to use human intervention.

That model is too slow for todays threat perpetrators, Schawacker says. He says agencies must move more aggressively into automation of the kill-chain monitoring, detection, evaluation and action, and free up more time for people to do predictive analysis.

Host

Tom Temin, Federal News Radio

Tom Temin has been the host of the Federal Drive since 2006. Tom has been reporting on and providing insight to technology markets for more than 30 years. Prior to joining Federal News Radio, Tom was a long-serving editor-in-chief of Government Computer News and Washington Technology magazines. Tom also contributes a regular column on government information technology.

Guest

Peter Schawacker, Director of Security Intelligence Solutions, Optiv

Peter Schawacker (pronounced like shaw-walker) serves as the Director of Security Intelligence Solutions for Optivs Services Center of Excellence. He is an intrapreneneur who mines Optiv for opportunities to solve client problems and grow the company. A veteran of the Information Security industry, as part of the early days of EarthLink in the mid-1990s. Later, he ran Citigroups SOC, before taking on technical, sales and marketing roles with ISS, NFR, McAfee and Tenable. Prior to his current role at Optiv, he built SIEM consulting services for Alchemy Security and Accuvant. Mr. Schawacker resides in Mexico City.

Peter Schawacker, Director of Security Intelligence Solutions, Optiv Peter Schawacker (pronounced like shaw-walker) serves as the Director of Security Intelligence Solutions for Optivs Services Center of Excellence. He is an intrapreneneur who mines Optiv for opportunities to solve client problems and grow the company. A veteran of the Information Security industry, as part of the early days of EarthLink in the mid-1990s. Later, he ran Citigroups SOC, before taking on technical, sales and marketing roles with ISS, NFR, McAfee and Tenable. Prior to his current role at Optiv, he built SIEM consulting services for Alchemy Security and Accuvant. Mr. Schawacker resides in Mexico City.

See the article here:

Optiv's Schawacker says automation must be future of continuous monitoring - FederalNewsRadio.com

The FDAs latest draft guidance on the Drug Supply Chain Security Acts (DSCSA) product identifier requirements gives pharmaceutical manufacturers a little breathing room, as enforcement of the original November 2017 deadline gets pushed back a year.

But this news should not inject indolence into the industry, because the reality is, nothing has changed except that companies wont be facing enforcement of the requirementsuntil November of 2018.

To be clear: the law remains intact and this should not be seen as a sign that the FDA is easing off the industryat all. In fact, I asked a few industry experts what this change means, and it seems to be a friendly gesture by the FDA to give the companies that are way behind in compliance some more time. But there are no free rides here. In fact, it just means stricter enforcements in the future.

It is more than likely that this suspension of enforcement for 12 months will entail a complete zero-tolerance approach in 2018 as anyone not in compliance would technically have been in violation of the law for a full year, said Dave Harty, vice president of professional services at Adents, a maker of unit identification serialization and traceability software.

In short, pharmaceutical companies and CMOs producing prescription medicines will not be penalized if they do not meet the upcoming serialization deadline of November 2017, Harty explained. But, and this is very important, the original deadline remains unchanged. You still are legally required to serialize prescription medicines intended for distribution to the American market before the end of the year.

Peter Sturtevant, senior director of industry engagement for GS1 US, agrees. Even though it may seem like manufacturers have the luxury of an additional year, the FDAs enforcement delay has no direct impact on the Act itself.It would require an act of Congress to change DSCSA, he said. The question for manufacturers now becomes, when November 27th approaches, do we want to be compliant with the law or not? The FDA announcement means it will not enforce any penalties on manufacturers for non-compliance of the serialization requirement, but it still makes good business sense for manufacturers to continue to prepare their production lines for serialization.

Indeed, the law is not expected to change, even though theres been industry speculation that the Trump administration is angling to eliminate regulations that burden businesses unnecessarily. But this law is not about creating problems for pharma companies. Rather, it is meant to protect the consumer by keeping counterfeit products out of the supply chain.

The next obvious observation, however, is, how this will impact the downstream deadlines for repackagers (November 2018), distributors (November 2019) and dispensers (November 2020), which must comply with the same serialization mandates.

There is a strong possibility downstream trading partners will experience cascading discretionary delays as a result of this announcement, as we saw this happen the last time there were discretionary enforcement delays on two different occasions for phase one of DSCSA for the lot-based requirement, Sturtevant said.

Similarly, Dirk Rodgers, a regulatory strategist with Systech International and the founder of RxTrace, noted in an article that, by not enforcing the manufacturers requirement to apply the new DSCSA product identifier on all drug packages by this November, the FDA is forced to soften some of the deadlines for other segments of the supply chain. But, he added, that the new draft guidance makes it clear that the repackager, distributor and dispenser deadlines will still be enforced for product that the manufacturer introduced into commerce with the new DSCSA product identifier before November 27, 2017.

In addition, Rodgers noted that other than the product identifier enforcement delays, manufacturers should be aware that there are a number of requirements that will still go into effect on November 27, 2017. In his article, Rodgers stated: Manufacturers must begin to provide the transaction information, transaction history and transaction statement in electronic format only, except when selling directly to a licensed healthcare practitioner who is authorized to prescribe medication under State law, or to other licensed individuals who are under the supervision or direction of such a practitioner who dispenses product in the usual course of professional practice.

The bottom line here is that nothing has changed, because, as noted, Congress set the deadlines and only Congress can change the deadlines. And, Rodgers points out that because the FDA is the agency that enforces the law, they can choose to enforce it selectivelyparticularly to minimize possible disruptions in the distribution of prescription drugs in the United States.

For now, the FDAand hopefully the industryis still on track to meet the 2023 deadline for full serialization interoperability with track and trace for all supply chain trading partners.

So, pharma manufacturers, take a breath, but keeping moving forward on thisquickly.

See the rest here:

The DSCSA Delay: What it Means to Manufacturers - Automation World

One of the promises of voice-based computing is the ability to make home automation simpler something that major tech companies, including Amazon, Apple and Google, are now tackling with their own voice assistants and smart speakers. But their solutions are still somewhat clunky, both in terms of the software interface for configuring your smart home and the voice commands you use to take actions. Thats where the startup Josh.ai comes in.

The company has now raised $11 million to design a better voice-controlled system for smart homes, and will later this year release its own hardware dedicated to this purpose.

Headquartered in Denver with offices in L.A., Josh.ai is the product of serial entrepreneursAlex Capecelatro, CEO, and Tim Gill, CTO. The two previously worked together on a social recommendations app Yeti, which had begun its life as At The Pool, andwas sold back in 2015. Gill, who had previously founded and sold Quark (Quark XPress), had joined Yeti as a technical advisor, and wrote a number of the algorithms used in the app.

Following the sale of Yeti, the two teamed up again to work on a project in the smart home space something they were both interested in for personal reasons.

Gill, for example, had spent years developing his own home automation system his version of Mark Zuckerbergs Jarvis to run inside the large residential property he was building in Denver.

He was well underway in building the house and understanding what the competition looked likewhat the product offerings looked like, explainsCapecelatro. And he was pretty dissatisfied with what was out there.

Meanwhile,Capecelatro was also building a home for himself in L.A., and running into the same problems.

I was just amazed that all of the big automation systems Crestron, Control4, and Savant they cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the [user interface] looks like its from the 90s, he says. It was weird that for a ton of money in my home where you want to have a delightful experience, the best offerings on the table just werent that good.

The founders saw a need in the market for something that sits above mass market solutions, like Apples Home app, or Alexas smart home control, which focus more on tying together after-market devices, like security cameras, smart doorbells, or smart lights like Philips Hue.

They founded the startup Josh.ai in March 2015, and shipped the first product the following year.

The solution, as it exists today, includes a kit with a Mac mini and iPad, and software that runs the home. After plugging in the Mac, Josh.ai auto-discovers devices on the network. It can identify those from over 50 manufacturers. For example, it can control lighting and shades like those from Lutron, music systems like Sonos, dozens of brands of security cameras, Nest thermostats, Samsung smart TVs, and even more niche products like Global Cachs box for controlling IR devices (such as your not-so-smart TVs).

The automatic speech recognition (AKA speech-to-text) portion of Josh.ais system is handled in the cloud, while Mac mini handles the natural language processing to know what your commands mean.

What makes Josh.ai unique is not just its software interface, but how users interact with the system. You speak to the voice assistant Josh to tell the home what to do. (You can also change its name if thats an issue, or even pick from a variety of male and female voices and accents.)

Josh, or the wake word youve chosen, precedes your command, which can be spoken using more natural language. The system is better than many when it comes to interpreting what you mean, by nature of its single-purpose focus on home automation.

For instance, you can tell Josh to turn it off, and it will know what it means because it remembers what it had turned on before. Or you can say, its hot in here, and Josh will know how to adjust your thermostat.

It can also deep-link to streaming video content, so you can ask to watch Planet Earth, and Josh will turn on the TV, switch to the right input, launch Netflix, then start playing the show.

Josh.ai supports scenes, as well, allowing you to configure a number of devices to work together like lights, shades, music, fans, thermostats, and other switches. That way, you can say things like turn everything off, and Josh knows to shut down all the connected devices in the home.

Where the system gets really smart is in its ability to handle complex, compound commands meaning controlling multiple devices in one sentence.

You can say to Josh, play Simon and Garfunkel and turn on the lights, for example. Or, play Explosions in the sky in the kitchen, and play Simon and Garfunkel in the living room. Other systems could get tripped up by the and and the in the in the artists names, but Josh.ai understands when those words are a break between two commands, and when theyre part of something else.

The current system which was largely designed for high-end homes is sold by professional integrators at around $10,000 and up, depending on the components involved. To date, the team has sold more than 50 and fewer than 100 installations.

Josh.ai can work over your Echo or Google Home, if you prefer, and includes interfaces for iOS, Android and the web. But the company is now preparing to launch its own, farfield mic solution in a new hardware device thats built specifically for use in the home.

While the new hardware will perform some basic virtual assistant type tasks telling you the weather, perhaps (the company isnt confirming specific features at this time) the main focus will be on home automation.

Above: a tease of the new device

The hardware wont be a cylindrical shape like Echo or Google Home, but will be designed with an aesthetic appeal in mind.

It also wont be super cheap.

It will still be a premium product, but it will be a lot less than where the current product is. And the idea is this will enable our mass market rollout in probably a year to eighteen months, notesCapecelatro, speaking of his plan to keep bringing Josh.ais technology to ever larger audiences.

Josh.ai, a team of 15 soon to be 25, recently closed on $8 million in new funding, largely from the founders personal networks. The investors names arent being disclosed because theyre not institutional firms. To date, Josh.ai has raised $11 million, but has not yet added anyone to its board.

Follow this link:

Josh.ai raises $11 million for a premium home automation system with a smarter AI - TechCrunch

My evenings tend to be rather dull and uneventful, but I was excited on that particular night. I locked my door, dimmed the lights, turned off my phones notifications and giddily pulled out my new toy: the Fleshlight Launch.

Disclaimer: This review contains inappropriate language. Please find something else to readunless youre 18 or older.

For those unfamiliar: the Fleshlight Launch is a fully automated masturbation robot that can make your head spin at 180 strokes per minute figuratively and literally. It is also threateningly large and happens to resemble the sort of contraption aliens in movies give to male abductees theyve selected for reproduction.

Credit: Fleshlight

The device is the latest collaboration between seasoned adult toy makers Kiiroo and Fleshlight, which have previously worked together on other high-tech teledildonic solutions for long distance dalliances like the Onyx and the Pearl.

As with their previous team efforts, Kiiroo handled the technology side of things, while Fleshlight provided high quality materials for the actual masturbatory accessories. This also means that the Launch is fully compatible with practically any Fleshlight toys for men.

The Fleshlight Launch comes with two modes: manual and interactive. Unlike the manual option which puts you in control of the speed and frequency of strokes at which the device operates, the interactive mode is entirely hands-free and fully synced up with the videos you watch so you wont even have to lift a finger.

You would usually be expected to fully charge the device before using it which could be a nuisance for users yearning immediate satisfaction but I made sure I was adequately prepared for my first time.

I had comfortably settled into my couch, stocked up on lube and lined up several windows of raunchy videos to choose between.

Setting up the Launch for first-time usage was fairly straightforward. Once youve locked in the Fleshlight into the Launch by gently applying clockwise rotating moves, youll hear a brief clicking noise this should be your cue that the device is ready to use.

After youve made sure the Fleshlight is properly screwed into the Launch, you can lube up the device and proceed to turn it on by pressing the button at the front.

Kiiroo and Fleshlight offer their own lubing solutions, but the toy works with practically any water-based lubricants though be warned that denser lubricants could make it difficult for the device to perform strokes as intended.

While it was the interactive mode that initially piqued my curiosity, one thing I had forgotten to prep up in advance was connecting the Launch to the corresponding FeelMe app the platform that actually powers the fully automated experience.

But since my impatience was growing stronger, I ultimately decided to put off testing the interactive mode for next time and swiftly inserted my baldheaded eagle into the Fleshlight Launch.

As an absolute newbie to adult accessories, the sensation felt oddly defamiliarizing though by no means unpleasant and I hadnt even turned on the device yet.

Once things get to that point, the first thing you will notice is the steady mechanical rhythm of the strokes.

Unlike a real human being, the movements the Launch performs are awkwardly machine-like and methodical; and while you can manually modify the speed and distance of the strokes, it takes a while to get the hang of the touch sensitive strip.

The good thing is that once you master the controls, playing with the toy gets exponentially more fun. While I found using the touch strip somewhat distracting at the beginning, I eventually got accustomed to the sensation and gradually began to luxuriate in the activity.

Not only did the distraction aspect vanish with continuous practice, but it also made switching between the whole range of stroke motions much more intuitive and natural. Perhaps you will like the sensation from certain modes more than others, but this is up to you to figure out along the way.

Credit: Fleshlight

In fact, by the time I got to mess around with the interactive feature, I had grown so accustomed to the manual option that I found it difficult to take pleasure in the fully automated mode.

One thing that made things less user-friendly is that, while FeelMe offers a wide selection of pornographic content to choose from, the platform had made only a handful of synced videos available to stream for freeat the time of testing.

But since Pornhub recently launched its own section specifically curated with interactive content, diversity of choice will likely no longer be an issue in the near future.

Disregarding FeelMes limited catalogue, the interactive experience was no less delightful than the manual mode especially when the stroke motions aligned with the action on screen. To co-ordinate movements, Kiiroo uses a technology it calls subtitling which relays time-based signals to the Launch in order to instruct it when and how to perform strokes.

The interactive mode is also compatible with VR for a fully immersive experience, but Im yet to test out the functionality though I suspect it will make the sensation all the more potent (assuming synchronization is on point).

For those interested to learn more about the syncing tech that powers the device, you can take a peek at the chat our editor-in-chief Alejandro Tauber had with Kiiroo chief technology officer Maurice Op de Beek earlier this year at SXSW:

Sexual fulfilment is a very personal thing and this will significantly influence the way you experience the Fleshlight Launch. One way to think about this is in terms of what youre hoping to replace or spice up with the device.

Another thing to keep in mind is that Kiiroo has decided to offer the starter Launch kit without the Fleshlight included. The Launch currently retails at $200, but you can take advantage of the current promo deals and cop aFleshlight pre-packaged set for $250 now.

For those seeking to relieve sexual frustration, the Launch might fall short of providing the intimate and in-the-moment nature of sharing an experience with another human being; even though the interactive mode does elevate the sensation to something a little more unpredictable and exciting than an ordinary wank session.

Individuals seeking to diversify their masturbation habits are more likely to find the Launch a worthy addition to their at-home routine especially with the added capability for control that the touch sensitive strips enable.

But chances are the device will appeal the most to long-time Fleshlight users looking for new exciting ways to jazz up their masturbation habits.

The Fleshlight Launch fundamentally alters all three of these experiences: while it will noticeably dull certain sensations, it will also markedly augment other aspects that you have only felt marginally in the past.

As someone who has come to appreciate the single life, the Launch has made it easier for me to balance between my urges for instant gratification and prolonged physical intimacy.

Yes, I still find myself craving sex and an occasional hand-enabled rub: and chances are the device will never eliminate these desires. What it does though is make me experience these sensations much more viscerally when an opportunity presents itself; and this is perhaps the thing about the Launch I cherish the most.

But be advised that no matter the reason why youre buying the Fleshlight Launch you will need to give yourself some time before you realize the full potential of this quirky sex robot.

Once you do though, it will entirely change the way you masturbate.

The good folks at Kiiroo gave us one Fleshlight Launch to give away. Tag someone who you think deserves or needs one in the comments or send an email with the subject line This is why I need a dick-sucking robot to dimitar [at] thenextweb.com. Dont forget to let us know the reason why!

Fleshlight Launch on Kiiroo

Read next: EU funded InVID launches a fake video news debunker

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Fleshlight Launch Hands-on: How I tried outsourcing masturbation to automation - TNW

Newfoundland and Labrador is Canada's charming East Coast fishing province, and it's in big trouble. The province, which is decorated with iconic rows of brightly painted houses, had an unemployment rate of 14.4 percent as of May this year, more than double the national average.

Now, a new and frankly terrifying robot that can butcher a crab in seconds is being touted as a way to reinvigorate the province's beleaguered seasonal fishing industry. However, labour advocates don't see it that way.

Since a moratorium on cod fishing was put in place in 1992obliterating tens of thousands of jobs in the processshellfish like shrimp and crab have become increasingly important to industry in Newfoundland and Labrador. However, crabs are sent overseas for meat extraction (delicate work that used to be done in the province) where labour is cheaper than in Canada. A robot that can do the work here for less than the cost of a living wage would bring that aspect of the job home and benefit plant owners who will reap the financial rewards.

But when it comes to actually helping workers, why go with a robot that may create a few highly-skilled maintenance positions instead of creating a bunch of jobs for humans to process all that crab themselves?

Read More: The Future of Robot Labor Is the Future of Capitalism

"Younger people are not being attracted to the industry," said Bob Verge, managing director of the Canadian Centre for Fisheries Innovation, which invented the robot, in an interview with the CBC. "A large part of the labour force in our processing sector now comes from the baby boomer generation. We can't replace those baby boomers with an equal number of younger people."

Enter the robot, which can do the work of this supposedly non-existent workforce in a province where 14 percent of working-age people don't have a job, and at a fraction of the cost of paying humans.

"We really don't have is a shortage of workers, what we have is a shortage of people who will go to work at a precarious job," Greg Pretty, industrial director at the Fish, Food and Allied Workers union, told me on a phone call. "[Factory owners] don't want to pay middle-class wages for the most part, and they want to employ people for 20 hours a week. And then the same crowd says, 'We can't get workers.'"

The Canadian Centre for Fisheries Innovation wasn't able to comment in time for publication.

Pretty is saying that there are people who want to work, but the jobs have to pay. To heal the province's hurting fishing industry, workers don't need robots, they need legislation that protects them, he said. Current policies allow tons of fish, including crab, to be shipped overseas for cheap processing. As for the wider provincial context, Newfoundland's 2016 budget contained a brutal raft of austerity measures, and the new government has committed to not increase government spending for five years in order to bring down the province's deficit by 2022.

With Pretty's comments in mind, it's worth taking a critical eye to claims that a new robot will invigorate an ailing industry and ask: who will it benefit, really?

"As long as there's been fish plants here, there's been tech change, and we have always dealt with it," said Pretty.

Motherboard staff is exploring the cultural, political, and social influence of the iPhone for the 10th anniversary of its release. Follow along.

Go here to read the rest:

What This Terrifying, Crab-Butchering Robot Can Teach Us About Automation - Motherboard

The struggling hedge fund world has seen more and more firms turn to computers for the heavy lifting of analytics in recent years. Quant firms have come to dominate large portions of the industry. In the most recent edition of Institutional Investor's Alpha's list of largest hedge funds in the world by AUM, quant firms figured prominently at the top of the rankings. (See also: What are the Biggest Hedge Funds in the World?)

Particularly at a time when client confidence in hedge funds is faltering, many managers are seeing computers as a way to secure the quickest, most thoroughly-researched bets. And yet, there are other managers who are pushing in the opposite direction, recognizing that old-fashioned human decision-making has something to offer as well.

A recent profile by Bloomberg introduces four significant money managers who have moved toward human decision-making and analysis in recent weeks. The report indicates that investment decisions at Winton, a $30.6 billion hedge fund that has a 20-year history of using computer algorithms for trading purposes, must still ultimately be made by humans.

Michael Hintze, a manager of another unnamed fund, indicated in the report that computer models are useful for spotting anomalies in the market, but these models are rarely able to suggest the best ways to answer these anomalies or turn them into worthwhile investment opportunities. Other managers believe that human beings are more useful when it comes to detecting patterns.

Why the sudden deference to human decision-making, which is, of course, prone to human emotion, misjudgment, and more? In recent years, many workers in the finance industry have wondered if the days of human employees are numbered. Some money managers have experimented with automating all sorts of areas of the sector, from securities underwriting to the management of portfolios. What's more, major figures in the finance world and the tech landscape have cautioned that machine learning may usher in a new wave of automation. (See also: Artificial Intelligence Hedge Funds Outperforming Humans.)

Executives at Winton indicated in a letter that there is, in fact, room for automation in the hedge fund industry. Nonetheless, those leaders believe that computers are not ready to make independent investment decisions. They still require humans to run the operations and oversee decisions at every stage. "The notion that human involvement in investment management should, or even could, be fully automated is wide of the mark," the executives wrote.

So how should humans ensure that they remain viable in a world increasingly dominated by machines? The simple answer is that workers should be prepared to diversify their abilities, be flexible in adopting technological partners, and, perhaps above all, be confident that they are very much necessary in order to ensure that everything functions as it should.

Excerpt from:

As Hedge Funds Move To Automation, Some Managers Prefer Human Analysts - Investopedia

ABB announced today that it has completed its acquisition of B&R (Bernecker + Rainer Industrie-Elektronik GmbH), a provider of product- and software-based open-architecture solutions for machine and factory automation.

B&Rs products, software and services in PLCs, industrial PCs and servo motion-based machine and factory automation will no doubt strengthen ABBs position in the market. The acquisition marks a milestone in its ABBs Next Level business strategy.

Following the acquisition of B&R, we are the only industrial automation provider offering customers in process and discrete industries the entire spectrum of technology and software solutions around measurement, control, actuation, robotics, digitalization and electrification, said ABB CEO Ulirch Spiesshofer.

B&R will become part of ABBs Industrial Automation division as a new global business unit called Machine & Factory Automation, implementing ABBs PLC activities. The unit is headquartered in Eggelsberg, Austria, ABBs new global center for machine and factory automation.

However, this doesnt mean B&Rs customers will lose support, as ABB has committed to investing in the expansion of B&Rs operations.

Our commitment to growing the business of B&R is demonstrated by our investment in a new R&D center, which is to be built next to its headquarters in upper Austria, Spiesshofer said.

The co-founders of B&R, Erwin Bernecker and Josef Rainer, will act as advisors during the integration process.

The B&R team is proud to be part of ABB and its leading Industrial Automation division, said Hans Wimmer, former managing director of B&R and now managing director of ABBs Machine & Factory Automation business unit. With our compatible cultures, complementary strengths and leading technologies, ABB and B&R will have an even more compelling value proposition to offer our customers in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

For more information, visit the ABB and B&R websites.

Read more here:

ABB Completes Acquisition of B&R Automation - ENGINEERING.com

In Cisco's weekly security update list, there are three critical bugs affecting its Elastic Services Controller and Ultra Services Framework.

Switchzilla warns its Elastic Services Controller (a network function virtualisation management environment) has static default credentials that would let a remote attacker log into the controller's UI.

The credentials are shared between multiple installations, meaning a miscreant could generate an admin session token that allows access to all instances of the ESC web UI.

There's also a privilege escalation bug: user tomcat has access to shell commands that lets that user overwrite any file on the system, and elevate their privilege to root.

The first bug in the Ultra Services Framework's (USF) automation service has an insecure configuration of the Apache ZooKeeper service, which again is remotely exploitable if the attacker can get at the orchestrator network.

The framework also has a bug in its staging server: a goof in shell invocations means an unauthenticated remote attacker can craft CLI command inputs to execute Linux shell commands as the root user.

There's also a credential disclosure bug in the USF's AutoVNF: it logs admin credentials in clear text, which an attacker can retrieve if they know the logfile's URL.

The same product also has a symbolic link error that exposes the system to arbitrary file read and malicious code execution.

Read more from the original source:

Cisco automation code needs manual patch - The Register

Whether taking a walk down the hall or hopping a flight to some far-flung destination, monitoring plant operations or large assets in the field has traditionally been an on-site role. Thanks to the emergence of remote access technologies, however, the need to be physically present to problem solve or monitor operations is fast becoming a thing of the past. Despite companies increasing level of comfort with remote access in general, they remain slow to expand usage into more sophisticated areas, including predictive maintenance applications enabled by the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT).

A recent Automation World survey confirms that remote access is no longer a fledgling technology embraced by a limited number of early pioneers. Almost three quarters of survey respondents (72 percent) are employing remote access technologies to gain entre to plant equipment and data while off site. Not surprisingly, the same number of respondents have multiple plant locations, which in part explains their interest in remote access technologies as a way to keep tabs on distributed operations. Among those who have yet to implement remote access technology, 46 percent say they plan to do so; the other 54 percent, however, say their companies do not permit it.

Despite a small amount of reticence, remote access technology is not a novel application. About 40 percent of the companies responding to our survey have had remote access capabilities in place for industrial applications for longer than five years; an additional 31 percent have been using the technology for one to five years.

Overall, manufacturers are making more liberal use of remote access functionality, but usage is highly varied depending on industry, according to Matt Wells, general manager of automation software for GE Digital. Vertical market segments such as wind, water, power transmission and marine, for example, are far more likely to invest in the technology compared with traditional manufacturers, which still tend to be more plant-centric. Anyone dealing with distributed fleets has a strong demand to be able to see, manage or control it from a remote spot, he explains. It all comes down to the difficulty of accessing that remote asset.

Going mobile Increased demand for remote access is inextricably tied to the rise of mobile devices, which are now ubiquitous among operators and other plant floor personnel. The whole concept of mobility gives operators the freedom to monitor devices or collect usage data on equipment without being physically present or tethered to a specific programmable logic controller (PLC) and human-machine interface (HMI) on the plant floor.

All [remote access] solutions give operators complete situational awareness to everything thats going on with the factory floor from wherever they arethats whats picked up steam these last 18 months, says Matt Newton, director of technical marketing at Opto 22. It lets an operator virtually be present in their factory without actually having to physically be there to look at the process.

Customers operating a wind turbine farm, for example, can monitor the speeds of the turbines and the amount of electricity being produced, and even perform some basic controls like turning turbines on and off based on market pricing, Newton explains. In another example, a food manufacturer can keep tabs on a refrigeration system remotely to avoid the nightmare scenario of frozen foods melting over the weekend because there was no on-site visibility into the system. All around, the concept of connectivity is tapping into information you didnt have access to before, he says.

According to our survey, the most prevalent use case for remote access is for maintenance, repair, troubleshooting and diagnostic applications, cited by 60 percent of respondents. Production monitoring is next in line at 44 percent, and 26 percent of respondents are leveraging the technology to support manufacturing intelligence applications for plant management and executives.

Though companies are actively embracing remote access, few anticipate an expanded role for the technology any time soon, the survey found. Beyond their current use, respondents said future plans call for putting remote access to work for pretty much the same types of tasks: maintenance, repair, troubleshooting and diagnostics (36 percent); production monitoring (33 percent); and manufacturing intelligence (26 percent). About 22 percent of respondents said they are already maximizing usage of the technology.

Given the most popular applications, the primary users of remote access technologies remain plant operators, engineers and technicians, with 65 percent of respondents saying those positions are involved at their sites. Plant management was another healthy sized user with 37 percent of respondents adding them to the list, while third-party engineers (24 percent) and corporate management (22 percent) made up the rest of the user base.

For the most part, manufacturers are leveraging remote access to deliver more flexibility to personnel and save costs. Two of the primary motivators for the technology are to reduce the time and expense involved in physically deploying workers to a site for problem resolution (cited by 60 percent of survey respondents) and to reduce downtime (53 percent). Manufacturers are also tapping the technology to improve knowledge of production operations and provide better insight into equipment conditions (42 percent each).

One of the primary drivers is eliminating travel costs, says Keith Blodorn, director of the wireless program at ProSoft Technology, which provides industrial automation connectivity solutions. ProSoft Connect is a cloud-native platform designed to simplify secure remote access to automation systems. One of our customers recently had to fly out to a place thats hard to get to, and the plane ticket cost $1,500 at the last minute. They got there, plugged into the PLC, found the problem in 10 minutes, but couldnt get a return flight for three days. That showcases a tangible value for remote access.

In such cases, remote access delivers far better labor utilization, GEs Wells notes. Instead of each plant functioning as a self-sustaining entity with a dedicated staff of automation experts, manufacturers can parlay a single expert across multiple locations. In the case of extremely remote locations, remote access can substitute for dedicated experts to support unmanned operations. As cost pressures increase, local engineering staff can log in remotely and get the data they need to provide relevant advice to fix and improve things, he says.

Moreover, the ability to tap into a remote site to gain access to critical data furnishes manufacturers with a larger data set for analyzing plant performance. With remote access and the ability to bring data up into a centralized data store, you gain greater insight into whats working well and whats not and can start to identify things that arent obvious in a single plant, but that you can see in the context of multiple plants, Wells says. GE Digitals Predix platform is built around the whole framework of remote connectivity, he adds, with analysis and optimization applications built on top, including those assembled into its asset performance management (APM) suite.

Though 34 percent of survey respondents are building their own remote access systemsprimarily web access to SCADA and HMI systemsa growing number (41 percent) are leveraging outside suppliers like GE Digital and others as they integrate expanded remote access capabilities into their product suites. In terms of top suppliers of remote access technologies, Rockwell Automation was the dominant vendor cited by survey respondents with 25 percent, followed by Siemens (18 percent), Schneider Electric (13 percent), ABB (11 percent), Honeywell (9 percent), GE Digital (8 percent) and a long list of others.

Next stop: IIoT-enabled predictive maintenance The bulk of survey respondents have yet to put IIoT-enabled predictive maintenance applications on their dockets. But automation providers are expanding their portfolios in this area nonetheless, anticipating plenty of future demand. Beckhoff Automation, for example, recently released its ultra compact C6015 industrial PC, specifically geared for remote access applications. Emerson Automation Solutions DeltaV Mobile app allows process engineers and plant operators and managers to receive real-time alarm notifications and remotely monitor their processes from wherever they are located.

Moving forward, companies like Rockwell and GE Digital will lead manufacturers into predictive maintenance applications by leveraging remote access capabilities along with predictive analytics tools and IIoT platforms. Most companies starting down that path have high-impact assets that put a manufacturer at significant risk due to downtime, notes Umair Masud, Rockwells product manager for consulting and security services.

If someone has a large compressor or rotating machinery and that asset is critical to the environment, they are absolutely invested in understanding the ways in which they can predict failure, Masud explains. Failure in any one of those areas can have a large monetary impact from a downtime or environmental perspective. In contrast, less complex environments like a food and beverage plant, for example, typically have redundancy built into their production lines, so predictive maintenance might not be as business critical, he adds.

Whether its IIoT-enabled predictive maintenance or more traditional remote access applications for production monitoring and support, security remains the most significant concern and primary roadblock for expanding remote access applications. You are playing with fire when you connect this stuff, says Opto 22s Newton. If youre connecting multimillion-dollar equipment to the Internet, its going to take a lot of educationits still a totally foreign concept to many.

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Remote Access: Widespread but Still Evolving - Automation World

Hundreds of companies are trying to disrupt the way we consume, work and move. The economy's growth potential could be higher if smart machines could turbocharge how humans go about their tasks. Higher productivity, or output per hour, would boost corporate profits and may help U.S. workers finally get a pay raise. Here's why that economic nirvana isn't happening just yet.

Vik Singh's company has powerful artificial intelligence software that helps firms hunt down the best sales leads. Getting somebody to use it well, that's a story that says a lot about the U.S. push into automation.

U.S. businesses have every incentive to adopt labor-saving technologies, replacing factory workers with robots and desk jobs with smart software. In some areas, such as finance, machine decision-making is advancing quickly. In others, there are obstacles. Overall, while the penetration of automation in the economy is happening, it is taking place at a slower pace than futurists expected.

Singh tells customers how his system can help trim sales prospecting staff and boost revenue. Managers are intrigued but sometimes reluctant to entrust a high-touch business such as sales to a black box.

"They just don't understand it," says the co-founder and chief executive officer of Infer Inc. in Mountain View, California. "And they don't believe it."

Hundreds of companies are trying to disrupt the way we consume, work, or move. The economy's growth potential could be higher if smart machines could turbocharge how humans go about their tasks. Higher productivity, or output per hour, would boost corporate profits and may help U.S. workers finally get a pay raise.

That economic nirvana just isn't happening yet.

Productivity in the U.S. rose only 1.1 percent last year, and rather than being replaced by technology, more workers are being hired. Employers have added an average of 159,000 new jobs a month so far in this expansion, compared with 99,000 in the previous upswing. Over the same period, investment in intellectual property products, such as software, has barely edged up as a share of GDP versus the last cycle.

"Low labor productivity is the biggest problem with the story," said Andrew McAfee, co-director at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Initiative on the Digital Economy and co-author of "The Second Machine Age," a book about the next wave of technology. "Some of these pretty profound innovations are going to take time to diffuse."

There isn't a single story that explains why second-wave technologies are trickling rather than flooding into the economy. Bloomberg News spoke with several to find out how the pace of technological adoption is proceeding. Here are some of the themes that emerged:

Here are some of their stories:

Social Tables helps companies with event space sell it to planners who need it, while also providing collaborative tools. The Washington-based company started using Infer about three years ago after launching a mobile app that gave it about 12,000 new sales leads.

The event space and planning market is large and varied. Sorting through those leads to find potential subscribers would have been a gigantic human task, said Trevor Lynn, the chief marketing officer. The company also turns up about 3,000 new leads a month.

Social Tables had a couple of choices: Hire an expensive database engineer or many more salespeople to sift the data. Instead, they use Infer, which sorts, queries and offers up live feedback on how the leads are performing. This kind of big-data hunting and vision would be difficult for any human to replicate in real time.

"We don't need as many lead qualification folks," Lynn said. While Social Tables didn't replace anybody with Infer's software, "it definitely shapes your hiring map in the future," Lynn said.

Social Tables is the typical Infer customer a young, fast-adapting company that is looking for ways to use technology to save money and move quickly. "One less person means more decisions in a rapid manner," Lynn said.

Getting more-established companies to use the software is challenging, said Singh, who previously worked at Alphabet's Google. About 25 percent of Infer's customers have been around 10 years or more.

"The biggest bottleneck to machine learning is trust," he said. As a result, finding the "hero CEO" who will tell their shareholders they are trimming a sales team to rely on a black box is difficult. "If we can create these technologies that build trust I am very confident we will be able to leverage that in a new way," said Singh.

From baggage carousels to shifting stages at a rock concert, a motor made by SEW-Eurodrive Inc. is probably the workhorse making things move.

Some of the most efficient manufacturing of precision casing and gearing this German company produces happens in a bustling plant on Old Spartanburg Highway in Lyman, South Carolina. Eighty percent of the plant's production is exported.

In 2000, there were no robots on the factory floor. Now there is one robot for every human, most made by Japan's Fanuc Corp.

The infusion of automation into the plant didn't push out a single worker. Robots added scale. The plant will produce 500,000 components this year, up from 78,000 in 1999. Total staff is up just 6 percent, to 148 people.

The plant is so lean that the humans are having a difficult time keeping track of all that robots need and do. Call it a robot saturation point.

The next big boost in productivity is likely to come from an unexpected place digital information, managers here said.

SEW Eurodrive is looking for a system to feed data from its production machinery into a computer dashboard that gives operators a real-time look at plant performance rather than scurrying around with clipboards.

"If we can make that product a little faster without jeopardizing quality or safety, then we win," said Melvin Story, a supervisor at the plant.

If a robot is having trouble with a line of components, a human can be on the problem faster. If there is a maintenance program coming up, they can do it on time before something fails.

Melding big data with manufacturing is the next step for hundreds of companies, and it is challenging, said Bryan Tantzen, head of manufacturing and industry solutions at Cisco, the networking-technology giant.

"You have to connect these machines to transform them," he says. There are obstacles. Not all machines are loaded with sensors. Information-technology staff can be different from operational-technology staff. People responsible for robotics can view networks as insecure and unreliable.

"That OT/IT divide is a huge barrier to adoption," Tantzen said, and the infusion of new technology into manufacturing has slowed in recent years, partly due to cost-cutting.

Eventually, big data will be a reality on the plant floor, he said, because there is a constant need to push up profits and productivity. "I think it is really about to hit an inflection point and accelerate, and therefore drive productivity."

BMW's Spartanburg plant the largest BMW factory in the world by volume, sprawling over 6 million square feet is the highly-automated carmaker that technologists talk about.

The hype around robotics suggests a world where humans have little input in manufacturing. Talk to BMW managers, however, and it's all about getting the right mix of humans and machines in a world where customization and complexity are big challenges.

Almost every one of the 1,400 X-series SUVs rolling off the line here each day has been custom ordered by somebody. While about 1,600 robots weld, drill and paint auto bodies in steel cages, further down the line the cars are surrounded by humans adding this audio system or that trim. Humans are paying close attention to look, feel, smell, and even the sound of these cars to ensure BMW authenticity.

"You can build a car for months and months, and never build the same car twice," says Steve Wilson, a spokesman for BMW Spartanburg.

If there is one lesson from the team here, it's that robots move processes while humans improve them, according to Richard Morris, vice president of product integration, who has been with BMW in Spartanburg since 1993. Morris says technology is good for "transactional jobs." He adds: "There is something that we call transformation and that is something only a human can do."

"When you put automation out there you are just living in the status quo, but with people you are constantly improving the process and finding ways to make it better," Morris added. "Sometimes it is better to start with people."

Managers are constantly on the lookout for new ways to insert more automation. One recent addition: a small "co-bot," working next to humans that rolls protective foil on a door frame. Having a machine do this simple task several hundred times a day saves time and wear on human hands.

But the company's continuous improvement wall, a display where they show dozens of small refinements created by their team, doesn't feature a single robot.

"I have never been inspired to do more by a robot; I have never gotten any ideas on how to improve something on the shop floor from a robot," Morris said. "Little improvements every day add up to efficiency, and we are adding more cars and we are still hiring."

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Slow march of the robots: Biggest barrier to automation is trust - The Providence Journal

Viewpoint

Robots in factories in the industrialised world are now taken for granted. Jonathan Wilkins, marketing director at obsolete equipment supplier, EU Automation, explores how robotics can also be used to create sustainable solutions and tackle world poverty.

The United Nations has reported that almost half of the worlds population lives on less than US$2 a day. On top of this, another billion people are considered to be living on less than this. Sustainable development that is, development that helps solve the problems of today without compromising the needs of future generations is an important part of decreasing the number of people living in poverty. And it is no small task.

Science and technology go hand-in-hand in solving the worlds problems and robotics and automation are the latest innovations set to tackle one of our biggest issues poverty. The number of people developing advanced technologies, such as robotics and artificial intelligence, to provide creative solutions to these real world challenges is on the rise.

Technological development relies on creative initiatives from companies, entrepreneurs and educational institutes to tackle crises. To solve these global issues, technologists also need to work with the people affected by them to understand the issues at hand. With a clear understanding of influencing factors, new technologies can be developed to tackle the problems head on.

The development of this new technology can draw on a number of innovative fields, such as big data, the internet of things (IoT), synthetic biology, 3D printing, quantum computing and drones to name a few. But it is robotics and automation which are now making waves.

In the developed world, robotics and automation are predominantly used in large scale applications, commonly in industrial settings performing tasks such as product assembly or welding. Personal robots are much less common, as many have limited functionality or are expensive. In more remote and less developed locations, low numbers of personal robots that provide a valuable service could be particularly useful in improving health or agriculture for a community.

In this environment, the robot could act not as a personal robot, but as a community robot performing specific, important functions on a small scale to benefit a group. This type of robot could increase quality of life for local people, and help develop more sustainable, healthy and safe communities. Potential functions include increasing accessibility to healthcare, performing agricultural work, checking the quality of water or solving design challenges.

The reasons a robot could benefit a community are similar to the reasons they benefit industrial environments so greatly robots are precise, strong and accurate. These characteristics can be put to use in different ways to suit a particular communitys needs. Once these have been identified, an engineer can develop a robot with the appropriate characteristics. For example, if it is particularly necessary that the community reduces waste, one solution could be the development of a robot to increase recycling by sensing the contents of different plastics using spectroscopy.

Alternatively, if there is a lack of clean water, a robot could be designed to monitor contamination. In agriculture, communities could use robots to assess soil condition, check the health of plants and animals and cultivate or harvest crops. These are just a few ways that robots could be deployed to increase the quality of life for those living in developing countries.

One company that is working with local partners to develop robotics for health and environmental applications is We Robotics. The company co-creates local innovation labs, known as Flying Labs, to help partners identify if robotics solutions may help to overcome the communitys problems. If a solution is viable, We Robotics works with technology partners to deploy technology for local applications, including transportation and data collection. Technological development using knowledge of the landscape and environment is essential as a part of this process.

Designing the community robot

Robots comprise several components to enable them to perform their specific functions, including sensors to recognise the environment, motors for actuation and systems for intelligent control. New designs can take advantage of existing components by combining these with knowledge of the specific application at hand, engineers can develop new solutions to problems.

If there are limitations to overcome, the designer must take this into account. For example, in some environments, energy may be a problem. To tackle this, a designer can combine a wind-up motor or biogas engine with an automated technology for sustainable use without access to electricity.

Robotic components can also be used in isolation or in combination with a human operator as a hybrid system. For example, using a sensor combined with a human for improved detection or a robot gripper that relies on humans senses.

In developing these robots, education is as important as collaboration. Creative local engineers that are familiar with the environment, culture and challenges can work with either academia or industry to develop the required technology. If this continues, new applications are sure to emerge that benefit communities and provide a useful function.

Robotics can contribute to challenges in developing countries, but robots need adapting to suit niche purposes. Once developed, these could be applied to help tackle the global poverty crisis, one community at a time.

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Automation for sustainable development - The Engineer

When it comes to internal service management, the key to a fast and seamless process lies with automation tools. By tradition, IT departments have tended to be the pioneers, using new technology to create tickets and filter employee service requests through automated systems that lead to quickly resolved issues. As IT teams have evolved from primarily handling break-fix tickets to implementing service catalogs that facilitate a wide range of services, the push for internal automation is amplifying throughout the entire organization.

The modern customer support experience within consumer-facing markets has also become increasingly immediate and comprehensive across a number of communication platforms. These shifts have put increased pressure on organizations to treat employees like customers. And what department has the most employee interaction? Thats right, HR.

Be it managing requests for medical plans or approved time off, its not uncommon for HR departments to require several days before responding. With expectations for on-demand everything, its important for HR departments to keep up with employees service requests. Using automation tools, HR processes can be simplified to ease the burden on HR practitioners and improve turnaround times on approvals and services, ensuring employee needs are met quickly and efficiently.

Many departments track service requests manually through spreadsheets and emails, or using a basic ticket management system. HR departments should consider implementing a service catalog that enables automation of processes, for seamless onboarding and request management throughout the company. Aside from IT teams, human resource departments bear the brunt of service requests that filter through organizations. This makes automation even more vital to providing efficiency in service management.

Service requests are constantly evolving, and their nature shifts with every little change in an organization. Whether it's a request to IT for a device or software for a new hire, a list of documents that need to be signed as a part of onboarding or a 401k enrollment request, HR leaders face a growing list of demands that require timely attention.

Automation is great for workflows that require a high number of approvals and steps. For example, onboarding a new employee, no matter the company, involves several steps from a wide range of departments. These steps include setting up the new hire with payroll by accounting, getting the right devices and software installments to the new employee from IT and everything in between.

HR leaders facilitate the onboarding process, and it can be grueling to manage each aspect of these services, especially given that HR should be modeling business processes and tracking all activities in a way that ensures accuracy and compliance. By automating onboarding procedures, human resources teams can ensure each step of the process is completed and approved.

There are a range of cloud-based service platforms out there that significantly simplify different business operations be it by outsourcing tasks or subscribing to tailored services. As companies increasingly adopt cloud solutions, automation tools are very valuable in enabling speed and scalability. Its up to the HR department to decide if it wants to start small or go big. For example, perhaps moving training to a cloud service makes more sense to start off with, rather than beginning with the entire salary system. Automation is an incremental process and the cloud can be a critical part of that equation.

Rather than deploying HR-specific automation tools, universal solutions can help streamline processes between employees and management, but also between departments. Through a single service portal dashboard, employees can request flights and travel, order a new ID card, submit time-off requests and more. With the proper tools in place, employees can create their own direct service requests, cutting down the workflow time and eliminating the middlemen. Top solutions can streamline service management, keeping requests for IT, HR and other departments in a central location.

Automating HR service delivery via a service catalog can help to ensure that HR activities are modeling business processes. A service catalog describes not only each service and its attributes, but its objectives. This intelligence can help to ensure that the services offered are closely aligned with critical business strategies, and can contribute to the achievement of key corporate goals. Once the service catalog has been set up to ensure business processes are being modeled and compliance needs are met, automation can be introduced to make service delivery easier.

Collaboration cant begin until there is a strong understanding of processes and operations across departments. From there, organizations can create a tailored solution that seamlessly integrates from department to department, as well as employee to employee.

Through a better understanding of how requests and services are managed throughout a business, leaders can set up tools that are tailored to fit the companys unique needs. For human resources, automation is the next step, following the standards set by todays IT departments. Offering employees a consistent and easy method for submitting service requests, and then fulfilling those requests efficiently, will put businesses ahead of competition by maintaining a workplace where employees are happier and are provided the resources they need to do their best work.

Editor's Note: This is a guest contribution from Steve Stover, VP of Product at Samanage

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Where to start with automation tools in HR - HR Dive

Guitar manufacturing is an industry known for its intricate, hand-made production processes. But even in such industries, automation is increasingly playing a role for a number of reasonsfrom alleviating workers ergonomic issues to improving quality and aiding materials inspection.

I was recently invited by Tyler Robertson, robotics engineer at Taylor Guitars in El Cajon, Calif., to see how automation is increasingly being used within the companys handwork-intensive production operations. He explained that, at the El Cajon facility, Taylor Guitars currently produces around 100 guitars a day. At the companys Tecate, Mexico, facility, some 600 guitars are produced each day[TR1].

Robertson came to Taylor Guitars a little over two years ago based on his experience as an application engineer experienced in robotics programming and robot software integration at In-House Solutions in Canada. Before working at Taylor Guitars, Robertson developed custom robot programs for complex processes in the plastics, aerospace and fabrication industries. He developed expertise in these industries working with robot end users, integrators and OEMs for job shop welding, laser and water jet cutting, and robotic machining, finishing and drilling applications.

Robertson was keen to discuss how Taylor Guitars has been using automation technologies for well over a decade now and how he is being challenged to expand the use of automation at the company to further improve the production processes and quality of Taylor Guitars already world-renowned products.

The Wood My tour of Taylor Guitars production operations started as you might expectin the wood receiving area. Common wood types used by Taylor Guitars include ebony, mahogany, rosewood, cedar and spruce. All inspections of the wood before processing are performed by hand because of fluctuations in materials.

To automate this inspection process would be a nightmare, Robertson said, not only because of differences in the woods, but also the differences between and within in each batch of wood. Getting the lighting correct for robotic vision inspection of wood, due these differences, is very difficult and inefficient. Ive looked into x-ray, ultrasound and CT scanning methods, but these are either not well-developed for wood scanning or are very expensive and geared more toward the lumber industry.

Despite the difficulties in automating wood inspection, there are other steps in initial wood processing that could be more automated, Robertson said, as he pointed out multiple pallets of wood stacked nearly to the ceiling. We get 2,000 blocks of wood in each day for the manufacture of guitar necks and heads. These blocks of wood are stacked and inventoried by hand, he said.

When it comes to tasks like this, Robertson said workers at Taylor Guitar are very open to the idea of automation. In fact, while Robertson guided me through this portion of the tour, a manager in the department approached him with suggestions for automation.

As often as such automation discussions occur with workers around the company, Robertson noted that automation is still in its infancy here and he is the only full-time staff person focused on automation in addition to his work providing tech support for production. Theres lots of opportunity for automation here, he said. The challenge is prioritization and focus on the projects that can deliver the clearest benefits first.

Like most manufacturers today, Taylor Guitars faces what Robertson referred to as the ticking clock issue of increasing numbers of pending retirements. Taylor Guitar is known for having little turnover among its staff; and having been in operation since 1974, a wave of pending retirements loom for the company. This is troubling for Robertson in an environment where it is not simple to automate many of the tasks due to the high degree of material variances.

Beyond retirement issues, another example of the need for Robertsons investigation into automating the critical wood inspection and classification processes at Taylor Guitars is highlighted by the personal circumstances of a key Taylor employee in this department. Though this employee is not retiring any time soon, she is leaving the company because she is getting married and moving away.

Finding people who want to work at Taylor Guitars is not difficult, Robertson said, but finding experienced people is not easy and getting them up to speed on our processes takes time.

Describing one of the projects he is starting that involves automating the inspection of neck blanks and ebony fingerboards, Robertson pointed out that its not just the workforce timing issue he faces, but also the typical return on investment issues. While such challenges are common, Robertson noted that he has the benefit of what he called the Bob factor, as in Bob Taylor, the owner of Taylor Guitars. Bob may give the green light for a project based on his experience and ability to recognize the production benefits it would bring regardless of any projected return, Robertson said.

Tracking Guitars One aspect of automation that is a critical part of the production process at Taylor Guitars is the tracking of each guitar as it moves through production by means of an RFID chip placed on each guitar topwhich is among the first guitar components made in Taylor Guitars production process.

No information is stored on the RFID chip, Robertson said, but it creates a digital thread for us that allows each guitar to be tracked throughout production. If problems arise at any point, we can follow this digital thread to determine the source of the problem.

Highlighting an example of the effectiveness of the digital thread, Robertson described a time when the company was experiencing issues with guitar finishes. Using the digital thread created by tracking the RFID chip through production, they were able to trace the problem back to the sanding process.

Robertson added that having this digital thread in place also helps the company comply with environmental and regulatory requirements.

The Necks We then moved into the guitar neck milling area of the plant where several 20+-year-old Fadal CNC machines carve the necks out of wood blocks. Were starting to feel the pain with these older CNC machines as they age, Robertson said, noting that its not just maintenance issues, but data collection. I want to have a SCADA system hooked into these machines to help track and monitor resource management, he said.

Looking across racks of recently glued head stocks and necks in this area of the plant, Robertson explained there are a lots of process considerations when it comes to automating and/or speeding up guitar production. By this he meant that what may make sense to automate and move through quickly from a process point of view may not make sense for the materials. For example, we have to let the wood rest after gluing before moving it on to the next assembly step to make sure it reacts correctly.

Clarifying the importance of wood-working knowledge in Taylor Guitars business over automation technology knowledge, Robertson noted: I have a degree in systems engineering, but my boss is a cabinet maker.

This reality is underscored in the guitar body production department where Robertson pointed out that nothing in this department is a focus for automation. The only possible exception to this rule would be in bringing in a robot for some sanding applications to address worker ergonomics.

To alleviate ergonomic issues in this intensive hand-working area, Robertson said that workers here move around constantly to perform different duties. This part of the process could be done in an assembly line fashion, he said, but by moving workers around it avoids repetitive stress injuries and keeps workers interest high.

One area where automation technologies do play a part in this segment of the guitar production process is bending wood to form guitar sides. Robertson said that all of the companys side benders are made in house and use Automation Direct DirectLogic DL06 and DL105 PLCs and Groschopp dc gear motors.

The use of automation is key here because each type of wood has a different bending recipe, Robertson said. He explained that these recipes direct the application of different pressures and temperatures.

Robertson also pointed out the Epilog laser cutting system in this department that is used to cut wood used for the guitars internal bracinga key component of a guitars signature sound. Robertson created a touch screen for this machine to ease the brace-cutting process for workers. Previously, the workers had to look up and enter precise codes into the machine to cut bracing to correct specifications for the various types of guitars. The touch screen he created simplifies the selection process by allowing workers to tap an area of the screen identified by the guitar model for which they are creating the bracing. Once this selection has been made, the proper codes are automatically loaded and the worker only needs to place wood blanks into machine for laser cutting to specifications.

Pickups The three most automated parts of Taylor Guitars production processes are assembly of the piezo pickups, spraying of the polyurethane finishes on the guitars and buffing of the guitars finish.

Assembly of the companys ES2 piezo pickups begins with a vibratory feeder that feeds the pickups crystals onto a conveyor where a Cognex 7010 camera determines the polarity of crystals. These two-sided crystals have a silver (positive polarity) side and a bronze (negative polarity) side. Crystals fed onto the conveyor bronze side up are re-routed through the feeder so that they are all silver side up before being picked by an Epson G3 robot.

In total, three Cognex cameras are used in the pickup assembly process, Robertson saidone to determine polarity of each crystals exposed side via a color sensor camera, another to verify quality of the assembly process, i.e., correct placement of the three crystals into the pickups foil, and assessing final assembly of the pickup.

As the crystals are being selected for correct polarity, a worker puts foil down in the pickup molds. The paper backing on the pickup foil is peeled off and discarded by custom Taylor tooling, after which the Epson robot places insulation on the foil and then installs the printed circuit board (PCB). The first robot which picked the crystals off the conveyor then places the crystals into the slots on the pickup assembly. Once the crystals and PCB are in place, the assembly is folded and a second Epson G3 robot brings the assembly to a foil wrapping station.

Another important aspect of the pickup assembly process is the use of Keyence LR-T sensors to detect presence or absence of parts in pickup assembly.

Finishing The use of a robot to apply a urethane finish to the guitars electrostatically began in the early 2000s, Robertson said. The system for this spray robot application was designed in a joint project between Taylor Guitars and Pinnacle Technologies (a robotics system integrator firm). The system includes an ABB IRB 2400 robot and Rockwell Automation MicroLogix PLCs.

A consistent spray pattern is repeatedly achieved on the various guitars produced here by having the robot move the guitar parts under a stationary sprayer. Having a fixed sprayer and moving the guitars under it achieves a better finish, Robertson said, than by fixing the sprayer to a robot arm and having it move around the guitar part.

My rule of thumb, said Robertson, is if the tool is heavier than the part, its better to move the part than the tool.

Buffing Early this year, the company upgraded its robotic buffing system. Robertson noted that this was one of the first areas ever automated at Taylor Guitars because of the intense ergonomic issues involved in having workers position guitars against high-speed rotating buffers.

The previous buffing system handled 80-85 percent of the buffing process, with the new system handling 95-98 percent of the process. Final finishing, Robertson stressed, is still done by hand.

Like the robotic spraying system for guitar finish application, the robotic buffing system is another joint Taylor Guitars/Pinnacle project which uses an ABB IRB 4600 robot and Rockwell Automation CompactLogix PLCs and Kinetix drives. The Allen-Bradley motors, inverters and PLCs handle compensation of the buffing wheels, said Robertson, which is key to maintaining the correct pressure of the buffing wheels against the guitars.

The ABB robot programs in the buffing system were initially programmed via a root teach pendant. Robertson said he then refined these programs in MasterCam to fine-tune robot movements based on each guitars CAD models. It takes about a week to prove out the process for each guitar type, he said.

Balluff RFID readers in the buffing area are used for digital thread tracking. Though these RFID readers are only used for tracking now, Robertson said he plans to use them to trigger programs in the Allen-Bradley controls to initiate the proper buffing program for the associated guitar.

The robotic buffing system previously used by Taylor Guitar before this years upgrade has been re-purposed by ABB for use in the companys Tecate factory where buffing is still done by hand. This will be their introduction to using robots in the Tecate factory, Robertson said.

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Finding the Fit for Automation - Automation World

We are walking down the strip in Las Vegas in the year 2035.

The lights are glaringly flashing, music is pounding your ears, the usual nine Elvis look-alikes try to pose with you for a few dollars. A few robots are crisscrossing between the legs of passersby, offering ticket services, information and to be their guide. Self-driving vehicles bring gamblers from casino to casino. A robot group performs a break dance, and you can compete against Robo-MJ in basketball.

Vegas is still Vegas, so nothing has really changed. Or has it?

Maybe it wont be visible to the eye, but robots may have taken the place where people currently toil to keep the Vegas machine humming. About 65% of all jobs in Vegas are susceptible to automation by 2035 a bigger share than in any other part of the country. Across the U.S., 55% (or more) of jobs in almost all metropolitan areas face this same scenario.

Who will be at risk? How many jobs will be lost by then? And what will life look like?

Scientists are heatedly debating whether robots and artificial intelligence (AI) will appear as colossally in our lives as some studies predict. Will we really see mass adoption of robots and AI gadgets?

The reality is both technologies already have seen mass adoption and it is foolish not to expect it to accelerate. Every smartphone already is essentially an AI device, and 1.5 billion of those were shipped in 2016. Some 1.6 million industrial robots operated worldwide in 2015, a total thats expected to increase to 2.6 million by 2019.

Research shows that if all these 1 million additional robots worldwide are merely as productive as those that already exist, each robot would on average replace the work done by 5.7 U.S. workers, or 5.7 million workers in all.

More worrisome is that if robot adoption continued to grow at the same pace beyond 2019, about 18 million industrial robots would be installed worldwide in 2035 and would perform the work equivalent to about 100 million U.S. workers. Put another way, this robotic workforce would be capable of producing the equivalent of the current manufacturing output on the entire planet.

Then there is the robotic invasion of the service sector, where most Americans work. Machines have already displaced service workers over the last few decades (think ATMs and self-checkout stations in grocery stores), but added intelligence allows machines now to take on tasks from room cleaning to radiology.

How quickly this transition can happen can most easily be seen in household services, where robots can substitute for hired services. In 2015, 3.7 million household robots were sold worldwide and that is expected to jump to almost 31 million annually by 2019. At growth rates after 2019 similar to those we currently see in industrial robots, we can expect annual sales of about 220 million units in 2035.

Right now, these robots mow lawns and clean carpets. They serve food and mix drinks in bars; by 2019 they will perform X-ray analysis with higher accuracy than the average radiologist can provide.

What could they be doing by 2035? Almost everything routine, including highly paid tasks such as routine surgery, regional economic analysis, and flying commercial airplanes.

So the key to understanding what may happen to Vegas and the rest of the U.S. service sector is that the recent advances in robotics and AI make those technologies continuously more affordable. Additionally, hardware in many AI applications is less costly than entire robots. Self-driving cars and trucks dont need much more than added intelligence, and similarly for vacuum cleaners and lawn mowers.

More than 90% of U.S. workers are in a service job, ranging from cashiers to surgeons. Given the expected high speed of this transformation, it will be a gigantic challenge for the economy to create additional or entirely new jobs at the same pace as robots can replace existing jobs.

What will Vegas look like when you drive down the Strip in 2035? Most of the automatable jobs wont be in the streets, but in restaurants, offices and retail stores. Some 54% of all automatable jobs in Vegas belong to food preparation and serving, office and sales occupations. Where the robots will really make a difference is mostly in jobs at the lower end of the pay scale. But thats not going to last.

However, not all jobs that can be automated will be automated. It is hard to imagine a high-end jewelry store or designer boutique without sales clerks or a gourmet restaurant without waiters. However, not only will their back offices be staffed more thinly but their sales strategies will likely also change. Foot and even full-body scanners are already available to find the perfect size for shoes and clothes, which can speed up the sales process. And why not have them made to order right on the spot from a machine? Point of sales and point-of-use production are just around the corner.

Whether we all will be able to benefit from this brave new world will depend on our ability to bring education and lifelong learning specifically to those at the highest risk of automation. Those with less than a high-school diploma face a six times higher risk losing their job to a robot than those with a doctorate, such as a Ph.D. or MD.

Given the uneven distribution of education and jobs across racial and ethnic groups, hispanics are 25% and African-Americans 13% more at risk to lose their job to automation than whites. Twice as many women than men work in occupations that are at an especially high risk of automation, such as tellers and cashiers.

Our political leaders are remarkably silent about this issue, despite its explosive potential for the labor market and beyond. By comparison, the historical effects of trade policies are mere ripples on the water. It is hard to imagine a scenario in which the U.S. can scale education and job creation as quickly as international competition for the robotics market can scale the production of robots and AI devices.

And this prospect sends cold shivers down our spines.

Jess Chen is a research fellow at the Institute for Spatial Economic Analysis at the University of Redlands and leads the Institutes research efforts on the effect of automation in the workplace. Johannes Moenius is a professor of global business and the director of the Institute for Spatial Economic Analysis at the University of Redlands. He holds the William R. and S. Sue Johnson Chair of Spatial Economic Analysis and Regional Planning.

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Opinion: Two-thirds of jobs in this city could be automated by 2035 - MarketWatch

I recently taught a graduate school banking class where, at its conclusion, a student said, I just want to thank you for not being an alarmist. But that comment puzzled me since most of my subject matter was about the rapid change in the industry.

In fact, in scores of speeches in recent years, I have worried that I might be putting off some folks with my preaching about the need to re-evaluate strategies and practices. My mantra to banker groups has been, Evolution does not mean elimination. Failing to evolve, however, guarantees elimination.

I inquired with the student why he thought I was not alarmist. He said he has felt immersed in doom-and-gloom talk about the banking industry. It seems like some people believe that the key to success in banking is to get rid of just about all of our branches and most of our bankers.

He added that he appreciated hearing a message about bankers continuing to be at the center of the industry that banking will still be about relationships and working with communities regardless of the technology banks are using.

His statement crystallized a thought in my mind. Much of the fear our teams experience amid the predictions of bankings future derives from not understanding how (or for that matter, if) they will be a part of that future.

There have been fervent predictions for years that branches and branch jobs would not be long for this world. Most have been wrong, but there have been modest reductions in both in recent years.

One thing to bear in mind is that a nontrivial portion of branch closures (by larger banks) are attributed not to banks trying to do more with less, but realizing that they need personnel and real estate to make a branch strategy work. These banks exited markets where they had a relatively small branch presence and therefore less ability to operate an effective network. It can be argued that many closures were actually acknowledgment of the need for robust branch networks.

Meanwhile, stories of increasing automation in other industries also contribute to the tensions felt by some of our branch managers and front-line bankers.

An example was McDonalds stock hitting an all-time high recently after announcing an aggressive rollout of automated ordering kiosks to replace many cashiers.

Shortly after that news, I was asked if the McDonalds story was more evidence that technology will replace front-line employees in most businesses, including banks. I suggested that it is definitely likely there will be fewer folks with the title of cashier. It is probable that McDonalds will need fewer total employees per restaurant to produce the output they provide now.

But I added this caveat: McDonalds kiosks will not be preparing the food, serving the food, keeping the restaurant clean or managing the teams. Kiosks will also not be resolving ordering mistakes or stepping out to assist a customer needing help. Kiosks will not be assisting with childrens birthday parties at McDonalds or chatting with the regular morning coffee crowds. Kiosks will not smile and thank customers.

What kiosks will do is turn over a few of the most basic tasks in a fast-food restaurant to customers. For easily understood and frequently repeated tasks, self-service technology may actually produce improved customer satisfaction.

Nevertheless, we will not be looking at employee-less operations in these restaurants. The business will still rely on competent teams of multitasking individuals in each store.

No, I do not believe that fast-food restaurants and bank branches are an apples-to-apples comparison. However, whether it is bank branches, restaurants, airport ticketing areas, Amazon-influenced grocery stores, or any number of businesses, talented and engaged employees will remain integral to their success.

I frequently suggest to managers of all levels that if they intend to lead their banks in the future, they need to lead their bankers into it. Our better employees are not as concerned about future staffing models needing fewer personnel as they are in knowing that there will be critical new or modified roles for them to fill.

Your best employees know and accept that evolution is inevitable. When you help them see that the future success of their bank will still rely on core groups of good people, they will be far more likely to remain engaged in building and fulfilling whatever new and improved business models you implement.

Dave Martin is a consultant specializing in retail banking strategies, including in-store branches. He is the founder of the retail bank performance company bankmechanics.

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BankThink Message to branch staff: Don't fear automation - American Banker

Drawing senior business and IT leaders, the ISG Automation Summit will take place July 10-11 at the Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan, the first of two ISG Automation Summit events scheduled this year. The second will take place in London, September 19-20.

The New York event will feature keynote speakers from BNY Mellon, TNG (formerly The News Group) and McKesson who will share their automation success stories. Other enterprise speakers include representatives from John Hancock, Bell Canada, AECOM, U.S. Bank and Ascension Ministry Services.

Automation experts from ISG will share lessons learned from advising a broad range of clients on robotic process automation (RPA) initiatives, revealing how to deliver on the promise of automation and avoid the pitfalls, including the importance of managing organizational change. ISG also will share valuable industry research and discuss the next wave in automation: cognitive computing.

Among automation software providers, IPsoft will be a featured speaker, and representatives with Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism and HCL also will speak at the event.

"Talk of automation and AI is everywhere today," said Mark Davison, ISG partner, Robotic Process Automation. "At this event, we will separate hype from reality and share practical, real-world experiences on how to successfully begin and continue your automation journey everything from deciding which processes to automate, to selecting the right business partners, to preparing your organization for change while looking ahead to the future of artificial intelligence and cognitive computing. This is a must-attend event for anyone interested in leveraging the power of automation to become more efficient and achieve their overarching business goals."

More details about the ISG Automation Summit in New York can be found at the event website.

About ISG ISG (Information Services Group) (NASDAQ: III) is a leading global technology research and advisory firm. A trusted business partner to more than 700 clients, including 75 of the top 100 enterprises in the world, ISG is committed to helping corporations, public sector organizations, and service and technology providers achieve operational excellence and faster growth. The firm specializes in digital transformation services, including automation, cloud and data analytics; sourcing advisory; managed governance and risk services; network carrier services; technology strategy and operations design; change management; market intelligence and technology research and analysis. Founded in 2006, and based in Stamford, Conn., ISG employs more than 1,300 professionals operating in more than 20 countriesa global team known for its innovative thinking, market influence, deep industry and technology expertise, and world-class research and analytical capabilities based on the industry's most comprehensive marketplace data. For more information, visit http://www.isg-one.com.

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/isg-to-host-inaugural-isg-automation-summit-300483205.html

SOURCE Information Services Group, Inc.

http://www.isg-one.com

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ISG to Host Inaugural ISG Automation Summit - PR Newswire - PR Newswire (press release)

During a recent road trip, I encountered two bridges under repair. Both bridges had only one lane open, necessitating a way to alternate the flow of traffic. At the first bridge, that task was handled by two flagmen, one on each end. At the second, traffic was controlled by a pair of portable, automatic gates.

I couldnt help but wonder which approach was better.

The first bridge would need at least six flagmen per day, assuming they work 8-hour shifts. What do you pay them? Its not a skilled job, but it is difficult. When I crossed the bridge, conditions were miserable. It was hot and humid. The men were wearing hard hats and jumpsuits. Their faces were covered by bandanas. The workers were exposed to dust, exhaust, UV rays, and noise from traffic, tractors and construction tools. Its a boring job, yet they must pay attention to what theyre doing. And, theres an element of risk. They could certainly be hit by an inattentive driver or a wayward steel beam. Still, you cant pay a flagman more than, say, a crane operator or welder.

Using automated traffic control gates would require an upfront capital investment. (The devices cost $15,000 to $30,000 per pair.) Presumably, that cost could be amortized over multiple construction projects, but even so, the initial outlay would be less than the annual salary of one flagman, much less six.

So which approach is better? Should we despair for the six people displaced by the automated gates? I think not. Who wakes up in the morning with a burning desire to breathe diesel fumes for eight hours and bake in the hot sun? Is the construction company inundated with flagman applicants? Whats to prevent those six displaced workers from becoming crane operators or welders?

Theres been a lot of talk lately about automation and manufacturing jobs. Much of it lacks nuance, if not understanding. The truth is, there are many ways to justify automationbetter quality, higher precision, greater throughput and improved safety, to name a few. Its not simply about lowering labor costs or eliminating jobs.

I once visited an assembly line that makes small, brushed DC motors. For optimum performance, the rotors are balanced, just like the wheels of a car. In the past, this was done manually. An instrument spun the rotors and indicated where they were out of balance. But, the process of adding or removing small amounts of weight from each rotor was done manually. The factory employed a dozen workers just for that task.

Then, the company automated the process. The fully automated line produces rotors faster, more repeatably, and at a higher level of quality than the manual operation. One person now tends the line, and the remaining 11 work elsewhere in the factory. Automating enabled the company to keep motor productionand, indeed, the entire factoryin the United States. Thats a good thing. Dont fear automation; use it strategically to improve your operation.

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Flaggers, bridges, automation and jobs - Assembly Magazine

Sprinkles, a chain of bakeries, has installed 15 or so cupcake ATMs around the US. Beyond providing on-demand desserts at any time of day or night, these machines also hold a valuable lesson for workers who fear that robots will take their jobs.

The lesson: dont become a cupcake seller.

Prestige Economics founder Jason Schenker thinks kioskification and related trends in the service industry are just getting started. In the cupcake world, that means the baker should focus solely on making the cakes. The ATM, meanwhile, handles the simple, repetitive task of selling them, freeing up bakers to focus on developing new flavors or other high-value tasks.

An ATM, kiosk, or some other delivery system can increase sales, because it attracts customers frustrated by long lines or who want a cupcake during non-business hours. (Or, they are intrigued by the novelty of it.) If sales go up, then more workers are needed to make products to fill the machinesideally, the sort of work thats more meaningful to them than exchanging money for cupcakes. Schenker suggests that, in this way, kiosks could help create more jobs.

As it happens, thats generally what happened with cash ATMs since they were invented 50 years ago. Since 2000, the number of bank tellers in the US has increased by 2% per year, faster than the rest of the labor market, according to research by James Bessen (pdf), an economist at the Boston University School of Law.

ATMs let banks operate branches at lower costs, which allowed lenders to open more of them. Therefore, automation itself sometimes brings growing employment to occupations, according to Bessen.

The same could be true in other industries, like the robo-advisors that are capturing a small but growing share of the financial advice business. Schenker points out that many industries make the bulk of their profit from 20% of their customersthe so-called 80/20 rule. Automation could allow financial firms to focus the efforts of human employees on personalized services for clients who have more complicated, lucrative needs.

Not everyone is convinced. The notion that automation could permanently reduce the need for human employment is a reason some think universal basic income will become necessary. French leftwing presidential candidate Benot Hamon suggested taxing wealth created by robots and providing citizens with monthly income payments. Microsoft founder Bill Gates thinks a robot tax could be used to fund public services and training programs.

These days, if bank-teller jobs are under threat, arguably its not because of the ATM but rather the iPhone. Smartphones are streamlining a wide range of banking services, and more transactions are now made without cash. Since peaking in 2009, the number of bank branches in the US has started to decline (pdf), reducing jobs for tellers as well (paywall).

The ATM itself has also been forced to evolve, offering more features, like accepting cash deposits and integrating into our digital lives by connecting with mobile phones, according to Accentures Jeremy Light. He argues that ATMs will become even more important as bank branches close down. Humans, meanwhile, will focus on roles that provide more complex services, like advice.

Its hard to predict which jobsif anywill be created as a result of robots, apps, and other forms of automation. But as Schenkers cupcake theory suggests, innovation doesnt always destroy jobs, even in the industry its transforming.

Read next: Weve been worrying about the end of work for 500 years

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Lesson from the cupcake ATM: Better to be a baker than a seller - Quartz

SINGAPORE: Singapore faces a serious gap in labour productivity. Singapores labour productivity grew by an average of 2.2 per cent per year from 2000 to 2013, according to estimates by the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI).

Yet for Singapore to maintain historical levels of growth, the city would need to increase its labour productivity by an average of 5.8 per cent per year from 2013 to 2030 - a rate nearly three times as high as in the previous 13 years.

In many countries, increasing labour productivity usually requires employment to shift from less productive sectors, such as agriculture, to more productive ones, like manufacturing.

For Singapore, however, this model might not be workable. Its economy has been restructured to some extent, and its labour market is very tight. Employment shifts among sectors actually reduced Singapores economic growth from 2006 to 2012.

Further labour productivity gains need to take place within sectors. In this regard, automation technologies - which include artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and robotics - hold considerable promise. Automation could raise productivity growth by 0.8 to 1.4 per cent annually in 20 large countries, according to MGI estimates.

To take advantage of this opportunity, executives and policy makers in Singapore need to understand the nature of todays automation technologies and the potential productivity improvements that they offer to Singapore and other Asian economies.

AI WILL AFFECT BUSINESSES

For decades, organisations have used computers and machines to streamline and perform the work of humans. Recent advances in computing technology, programming techniques and data collection are making it possible for machines to do more cognitive work, such as finding patterns in data and reaching decisions.

When my McKinsey colleagues in China conducted a survey on AI, respondents identified more than 100 ways that AI might affect their industries. Innovation seems likely to accelerate, also because investment is pouring into new applications for AI.

AUTOMATION AFFECT JOBS TO VARYING DEGREES

A common fear is that automation will destroy jobs. But the situation is more nuanced. Tasks like collecting data or doing predictable physical labour can be automated readily. This is not the case for activities that involve social, emotional and cognitive skills, such as dealing with customers and managing workers.

By looking at the potential for automating activities, we found that just 5 per cent of occupations could be fully automated with currently demonstrated technologies. Many more could be partly automated: Some 60 per cent of jobs could have 30 per cent of their activities automated.

These jobs span the pay scales and ranks of organisations, all the way up to those working in companies C-suite leadership roles: Activities consuming more than an estimated 20 per cent of a CEOs working time could be automated using current technologies.

EFFECT WILL DIFFER AMONG GEOGRAPHIES AND SECTORS

Although automation will influence jobs in every sector and country, it will make more of a difference in some places than in others.

The potential for automation is concentrated in four countries with large populations, high wages, or both: China, India, Japan, and the US. These countries account for just over half of the wages and almost two-thirds of the work associated with automatable activities.

Of the 11 Asian countries that MGI studied, Singapore actually has the lowest proportion of work that can be automated with current technologies (44 per cent, which is admittedly still high).

In Singapore, much of the work that can be automated using existing technologies is in the citys larger industries: Manufacturing (equivalent to 213,800 jobs), administrative and support services (134,200 jobs), retail (124,900 jobs), and construction (120,000 jobs). Two smaller sectors have particularly high percentages of automatable work: accommodation and food services (60 per cent) and transportation and warehousing (59 per cent).

ADOPTION DEPEND ON FIVE FACTORS

Some think that automation will happen rapidly, but it appears likely that the adoption of automation will take decades. The pace and extent of automations effect on work activities depends on five factors.

First, whether a demonstrated technology can be turned into a commercial product or service quickly. Second, whether the costs of development and deployment, which have to be covered in advance, can be eventually recouped.

Third, dynamics in the labour market, including demographics, wage levels, and worker training, which can help workers adapt to new technologies. Fourth, the type and distribution of economic benefits such as increased productivity, improved safety, lower labour costs and higher product quality, which determines whether companies have a strong incentive to adopt automation technologies.

Last, regulatory and social acceptance, related to issues such as safety and liability, data privacy and security, and possible increases in unemployment levels.

A projected 50 per cent of all work activities could be automated by around 2035 if these five factors favour the rapid development and adoption of automation technologies.

Should automation develop more slowly, the same level of automation might not occur until 2075.

MAJOR ECONOMIC POTENTIAL

The productivity boost from automation in the worlds 20 largest economies could be equivalent to adding 1.1 billion to 2.3 billion full-time workers when we reach 2065, based on MGI's estimates.

This could increase growth by 0.8 to 1.4 per cent of global GDP annually. Such gains would offset some of the slowdown in workforce growth that is happening in many advanced and some emerging economies - a demographic trend that could cut economic growth nearly in half.

Previous periods of structural economic change created winners and losers, but not in a zero-sum way. In the US, for example, manufacturing employment fell from 25 per cent in 1950 to less than 10 per cent in 2010, but new jobs replaced the ones that disappeared and society was better off on the whole when the transition was complete.

As automation progresses, economic growth will increase most if workers who are affected by automation continue working at the same levels of productivity. Meeting this condition will require concerted action in the private and public sectors.

Business leaders could find ways to redeploy the displaced, either within their own organisations or elsewhere. Policy makers should develop measures to help workers develop new skills and to promote the creation of new jobs.

Singapore is well-positioned to help its workers enter the age of automation, thanks to efforts like the SkillsFuture programme, which helps workers pay for the training theyll need to keep up with the demands of the digital economy.

The Government also has institutions in place, like the Smart Nation Programme Office, that could assist with tracking the progress of automation and devising new initiatives to help companies deploy advanced technologies. Tying spending and incentives to investments in new technologies more closely could be one approach.

I am optimistic that Singapore and other Asian economies have the human and technological capital, as well as the international outlook, to capitalise on the opportunities created by automation while limiting the downside.

Diaan-Yi Lin is Managing Partner of McKinsey & Company in Singapore.

Originally posted here:

Commentary: The optimist's case for automation - Channel NewsAsia

USA TODAY

Automation saved this American manufacturer USA TODAY Marlin Steel in Baltimore, Maryland, was able to stay in business by automating its processes to stay competitive when many other manufacturing jobs went overseas. Video by Jasper Colt, USA TODAY ...

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Automation saved this American manufacturer - USA TODAY