Wendy's Co., home of the old-fashioned burger, is serving up something cutting-edge: self-service ordering kiosks.

The Dublin, Ohio-based fast-food company is adding machines to at least 1,000 restaurants, or about 15% of its stores, by the end of the year. Wendy's began installing these kiosks last year, enabling diners to order without help from behind-the-counter workers.

Wendys is joining other eateries that are marching toward automation for at least someof the dining experience.

Panera Bread has said it plans to add touch-screen kiosks to all its restaurants within a few years. McDonald's also aims to roll out kiosks where diners can customize their burgers at all its U.S. locations. One cafe in San Francisco serves coffee brewed up by a robotic barista.

These kinds of self-serve machines and related technology could drastically change the way the $230-billion fast-food industry operates, analysts said. With minimum wages rising to $15 in some parts of the country, including California many chains are looking at ways to slash labor costs.

Lots of restaurants, not just fast-food chains, are really trying to mitigate the costs of higher wages, said Lauren Hallow, concepts analyst at Technomic, a restaurant market research firm.

Some eateries, for instance, are offering incentives to encourage mobile ordering so that lines are shorter with apps with special discounts and the chance to jump the line when picking up orders.

At Wendy's, Chief Information Officer David Trimm said that customers and franchisees have taken a liking to the kiosks.

You will see customers deliberately going to those kiosks directly, bypassing lines," Trimm said during the companys investor day Feb. 16. Some customers clearly prefer to use the kiosks.

Theres a huge amount of demand among franchisees, who will shell out about $15,000 for three kiosks, Trimm said. Wendys has estimated that the cost will be recouped in less than two years, he said.

These kinds of kiosks are not new but are gaining traction in restaurants becausediners have finally been groomed by the rise of online and mobile ordering to embrace the technology.

Young diners, especially, find interacting with a machine often easier than dealing with human workers. More than40% of millennials said they would use kiosks in a restaurant, compared with nearly 30% of all customers, a recent Technomic survey found.

Young customers like to control the whole ordering process," Hallow said. They have the chance to go quickly if they want to, or they can linger and see what the choices are without a cashier waiting.

In the long term, many chains are looking toward kiosks as a way to reduce their employee headcount, especially as wages rise.

Worker advocates have long been skeptical of automation in the fast-food industry.

If fast-food companies could replace us with machines, they would have done it already, Anggie Godoy, a leader in the Fight for $15 movement in Los Angeles, said in a statement last November. The fact is, we are in the service business and fast-food restaurants are always going to need good workers.

But not every restaurantis looking to replace theworkforce with machines at least not immediately.

Panera Bread, for example, has increased hours for employees at some locations to service the higher number of orders that come in through self-serve kiosks, said Nick Setyan, senior vice president of restaurants equity research at Wedbush Securities.

They just had too many people in line and they felt they were losing transactions because they just didn't have enough room to process orders in a reasonable amount of time, Setyan said. With the uptick in orders after the kiosks were installed, Panera Bread upped man hours in the kitchen to deal with the backlog.

For Wendys, kiosks are part of an overall move into automation that could cut labor costs, said Robert Wright, chief operations officer. He called 2016 a tough" year, with wages rising 5% compared with 2015.

Supervisors could use automation to take food temperatures and do other duties, Wright said.

There are repetitive production tasks that are in Wendy's restaurants that aren't core to the things that customer loves the most, he said.

That would give a boost to Wendy's, which has proved more adept than many fast-food rivals at navigating changing consumer tastes.

In mid-February, the chain reported its 16th straight quarter of increasing sales for restaurants open at least 15 months. It reported falling sales and profit overall, but that was mostly due to a strategic decision to sell off the vast majority of its company-owned stores a plan Wendy's completed in the fourth quarter.

The companys stock is up nearly 46% in the last year, and it recently announced the shareholder-pleasing moves of boosting its quarterly dividend to 7 cents a share, up half a penny, and authorizing a $150-million stock buyback.

shan.li@latimes.com

Follow Shan on Twitter @ByShanLi

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As the technology for automated vehicles, or AVs, becomes increasingly developed, legal policies are being made to accommodate this new technology.

In recent years, car manufacturers have begun to include more automatic features in their vehicles to enhance both safety and style, and, according to researchers, it seems this is only the beginning of automation technologies. Because of this, government regulations are developing in response to potential risks or threats to human safety.

Jason Wagner, associate transportation researcher with the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI), said automated cars range in capabilities depending on their specific degree of automation.

Automated vehicles right now have relatively low levels of automation, Wagner said. Theres classifications for talking about automated technologies. Theres six levels of automation, from 0 to level 5.

Wagner said the most highly automated vehicles that are currently commercially available are still relatively minor compared to what could be introduced in the future.

The most advanced ones that are on the market right now are at about level 2, Wagner said. Level 5 is a fully automated vehicle that can drive in all situations at or above the level of a human driver. Right now, automation is relatively simplistic and it can just do things like keeping pace with traffic or monitoring blind spots.

Ginger Goodin, director of the Transportation Policy Researcher at TTI, said there are several questions regarding the safe and practical applications of vehicle automation which have prompted government regulation of the technology.

What the federal government has done is put out some guidelines, saying, If youre going to develop these kinds of vehicles, there are certain criteria we want you to be considering. Like, what environment can it operate in? How are you going to protect data privacy? And what happens in a situation where the car cant negotiate whats in the driving environment? Goodin said.

Because automation is still relatively new, Goodin said policy makers are not yet able to anticipate every issue or hazard that could arise.

Were starting to do some explorations ourselves and were looking at the existing laws in the transportation code, Goodin said. Were thinking about this technology as we understand it, and as we read the code, we say, Okay, does the code still make sense if the operator is a self-driving car? When these laws were written, we didnt even know that these technologies were on the horizon. It wasnt considered.

According to William Kohler, senior counselor in the Corporate Finance Practice Group of Dykema, one of the major components of safe vehicle automation the communication between cars.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is requiring that new vehicles, as they are manufactured, be equipped with radio frequency connectivity so that you can have whats called V to V vehicle to vehicle connectivity, Kohler said.

In concordance with Goodins uncertainty about the legal prospects of AVs, Kohler said right now it is too early to tell. Specifically addressing accidents involving automated cars, he is not sure how the situation would play out.

It would be a very complicated situation and the traditional legal framework wouldnt apply, Kohler said.

Kohler said they are looking to states which are already implementing policies regarding AVs to prepare for the future.

At the state level, were watching state laws very closely, Kohler said. Michigan just passed a very generous autonomous vehicle law that was signed by the governor, where the system is the operator of the vehicle. That would seem to relieve the owner of the vehicle from responsibility. You cant really call them the driver, theyre more of a passenger.

See the article here:

Emerging regulations on automated vehicles focus on safety, potential risks - Texas A&M The Battalion

The budget is coming and the news is out that the focus will not be on job-threatening automation, but yet another innovation agenda. The downwardly mobile are unlikely to be thrilled. How many times have the feds laid out supposedly trailblazing innovation schemes the past four governments have tried them only to have them fade away?

They havent worked. The country has never been turned into a leading business or technological innovator. But Liberal strategists are undeterred. They will double down on innovation in this budget. Its to be innovation of a different kind, insiders say. Past measures, such as pouring funding into university science research, havent brought forward the anticipated trickle-down benefits.

Now the Grits are intent on getting into the business of cherry-picking. Theyll identify specific sectors and potential champions and target them for special support. One way will be by spending a large chunk of their procurement budget on them. The plan might be likened, so to speak, to an Own the Podium program for innovators instead of athletes. Economic growth will allegedly follow.

But what about the elephant in the room? The job-ravaging behemoth called automation. Dominic Barton, the head of Justin Trudeaus Advisory Council on Economic Growth, said recently that automation will eliminate no less than 40 per cent of existing Canadian jobs in the coming decade. Hes referring to such technologies as self-checkout counters, driverless cars, burger-flipping robots.

These are what Joe Populist cares about. More than any trade agreements, they are the job killers. But strangely the torrid pace of automation is hardly even being debated in Parliament or elsewhere. Theres a collective throwing up of the hands. Nothing can be done. Technological determinism is here to stay, earthlings. Deal with it.

Theres got to be more focus on automation and robotization, argues Frank Graves, co-author with Graham Lowe of Redesigning Work. There will be huge carnage and it is going to happen quickly. There are solutions but they will require bold action, not some bromides about innovation.

Bold action will not be forthcoming. Automation will be given short shrift in the budget. The word from insiders is that while the projected scary numbers of job losses have to be taken seriously, There isnt an appetite to hold back the tide of technology. There is no pickup, for example, on Microsoft founder Bill Gatess idea of taxing robots that do the work of humans and using the revenues for social needs. There is no enthusiasm for measures such as rewarding retailers who dont switch to self-checkout counters.

Such proposals are readily batted down by the argument that interfering with the advance of technology hinders progress by slowing down productivity. Countries that engage in such practices will become less competitive.

The counter-argument is that were moving into a new hyper-accelerated phase of automation. Just because it hasnt had a negative impact on jobs in the past doesnt mean it holds true for the future. Its a reason more governments are looking at economic nationalism to protect their workers. Its a reason why globalization appears to be winding down.

The Liberals point out that countries with the highest degree of automation still have the lowest unemployment rates. Mr. Barton and his group see no reason for proactive measures to slow it down. Their automation strategy is reactive. They will address it as a social problem that has a purchasable social solution. They are planning, for example, enhanced programs for people over 50 whose skills are ill-suited for the digital age.

Their plan to move away from trickle-down innovation agendas to a more targeted supporting of winners may well be worth a shot, especially if the winners dont win by reducing jobs.

But it wont, given the failures of past innovation schemes, be an easy sell. Joe Populist is more worried about having his job displaced by innovative technologies than seeing the country becoming more adept at creating new ones.

Follow us on Twitter: @GlobeDebate

See the article here:

Where is the Liberal plan for tackling job-killing automation? - The Globe and Mail

This video was recorded on Jan. 26, 2017.

Vincent Shen: For our finaltopic of the day,getting more high-tech, is the idea --and this is something that I think we had somepretty fun discussions about in the past -- of fast food workers going away. I thinkwe can't deny that calls for higherminimum wages or something that you seequite often in headlines. Even here in the D.C. region, the cityrecently approved a $15 minimum wage that willgradually reach that level by 2020 in the city. From what I could find for theindustry at a McDonald's,labor costs are a very significant piece of their cost structure,usually around 20% to 25% for these chains. What do you think? Howdo you think this is going to mold things?

Dan Kline:There'sgoing to be two phases of this. Thecurrent phase we're in now is Starbucks,Panera, Dunkin' Donutsthat are using technologynot to take employees out of stores,but to make stores more efficient.Chipotleis starting to do that. TheChipotle order app,where you can mobile order and pay, they're runningseparate lines. The line you see atthe front of the Chipotle where the person makes your food,in the back, there's another one of those. So, they'renot necessarily firing employees,or using less people in stores. They're putting more people into production.

That'swhat Starbucks is doing. So,instead of somebody having to take your orderin the line, they're making your drink,so people go through faster,the store serves more people. That's phase one. Phase two,you're going to start seeing the McDonald's of the world that have bigkitchens and don't need extra production help, they'regoing to start putting ordering in kiosks, and that is going to take their head count down. They'redoing that all across Europe and Canada. So,whereas there might be four or six cashiers, there might be 12 kiosks with one or two employees who are helping you through that,and maybe there's an extra customer service personfacilitating the process. And then,eventually, you're going to start to see, at the wealthier fast food chains, maybe fries atMcDonald's won't be made by human being. Maybe your Big Mac still will bebecause it's customizable and there's a lot to go into it. But, you'regoing to see less labor.I don't see any way around that.

Shen:Sure. Youbring up a really good point.It'll be very much a gradualtransition. Some of the examples you brought up in aMcDonald's with some of the self ordering kiosks, very popular, thePanera Bread we have across the street from Fool HQ here,also a similar situation, I think there's five or six tablets ready to go. Ithelps them turn down the staff.

Kline:Andthis has been happening for 20 years.I'm a slight bit older than you,and when I was a kid and you went to McDonald's and you ordered aCoke,someone poured a Coke. Now, most McDonald's haveCoca-ColaFreestyle machines,where not only do I have an enormous amount of choice --I can get diet vanilla root beer andmix it with Fanta orange if I want --all the person at the counter has to do ishand me a cup. So,this labor has been coming out of the fast food process inlittle ways for a long time. Andyou will start to see service being a premium,meaning Starbucks'willingness to have a person make your drink exactly the way you want it,where is Panera Bread just hands you acoffee cup, that's going to be a differentiatorfor some of these brands. So you may see fast casual concepts double down on people and actually charge more for the experience of getting your pizza not made by a robot pizza machine.

Shen:Lookinga little bit further ahead,we have some pretty big names in Silicon Valleyworking to develop better AI,better automation. Obviously,it seems like a very natural next step for that technology to beintegrated more and more into this industry, as we'vediscussed here.I guess I want to talk a little bit about some examples of some of the more high-tech stuff,still very much in the testing stages. One, I found that, for acompany we talked about just a few minutes ago with Domino's, this made me chuckle, they have their DRU, the Domino's Robotic Unit,which is essentially anautomated vehicle --but not a full size car. It has the capacityto hold as many as 10 pizzas in a heated compartment. It can handledeliveries within a 20 mile radius on a single charge. They'realready testing stuff like this.I think it's limited to New Zealand and Australia right now. They'vealso handled some issues with theft, withsecurity cameras, with the locked compartment. But it is, to me, aglimpse of the possibilities.

Kline:I thought you were going five years after thatin the future, where pizza robots are overlords.[laughs] Domino's has been very goodabout what I'll call the concept-car concept. When you go to an auto show andFordis showing anamphibious car that can fly and make you a latte,some of this Domino's technology,even as goofy as when they were delivering you pizzas viareindeer,it's just to get attention, butaspects of it are going to come out. I don't see a world in the near future whereautonomous pizza delivery cars are going to make a lot of sense in most markets. But,automating more of that process. There's no reason a man needs to take the glob of dough andput it into the pizza thing. That could absolutely be a machine that does that. So, you'regoing to see more and more of that. Andthat will make the process more efficient. And yeah,maybe in Manhattan, there'sgoing to be drones and robots. In very densely populated places, you'll see that. But I think a lot of that now is attention-gettinggimmicks. Domino's does not really intent --it's not cost effective to have a drone deliver me a small Cokeand a medium pizza.

Shen:So, last point here, you mentioned on the service side,having that human element be a differentiator, and how the next steps,it seems like right now, the ordering process is becoming automated. But with the food prep, it's still a challenge.I do want to bring up one example that shows that we are there,and it's just a matter ofreaching that mass scale. There's a company I found calledMomentum Machines, based in the West Coast, they garnered some buzzlast year in advance ofopening a restaurant with a robot that could flip 400 burgers an hour,cut your vegetables, and do quite a bit of that process,in terms of the burger prep. So,it really seems likeso many things right now are in the concept stage,and you'll get all these elements of itkind of like how you described, but for these trendswe talked about today, in terms of the competition, some of thediscountingissues thatthe industry faces,but also on the flip side, howthey're trying to tackle increasing costs andthings like that. It's really funny,how all this comes together.

Kline:It'sa question of cost. If you look at how McDonald's makes aMcCafebeverage versus how Starbucks does itversus how a local place does it,Starbucks is a little automated,McDonald's is basically push button, there's no barista,it's the same guy who makes your fries, makes your latte orespresso or whatever it is. But there's very few restaurant chains that canget to this quickly. So, if you are a McDonald's franchisee,and McDonald's comes to you and says, "Good news,you can eliminate 50% of your staff. Bad news, there's a $4 million investment toput in the automated burger machineand all of the other technology." So,this is going to be gradual. You're going to see,like I said before,maybe McDonald's, one of the more successful franchise models,might say to its franchisees "In 2018, you aregoing to automate making french fries and chicken McNuggets,and that's a $200,000 machine," orwhatever the number is. That's not going to fly atWendy'sorArby'sor any ofthe less successful, or aSubway, wherethe average franchise owner is making a nice salary, or if they'repaying a manager, they're making $40,000 to $50,000 inprofit. I'm sure some make more. They'renot going to be able to invest. So,this is going to happen,and I'm sure you're going to see some start-up money where it's a pizza place where there's no human,you put your money in and boop boopa robot makes you a pizza. Butit's not like, three years from now, you're going to go to the mallfood court and there won't be people there.

Shen:Yep,definitely lookingfarther out, for sure. Anything else that you would like to end on, in terms of, maybe, other trends that you're watching,things that aren't as prominent now but might be coming up down the line?

Kline:Yeah.I think there's going to be a lot of shake out. Wetalked about fast casual pizza,and I've written about fast casual burgers. There aregoing to be winners and losers in these spaces. There is absolutely room for aChipotle of pizzaand a Chipotle of burgers,and probably a number two and maybe even a number three company,but there's not room for 17. Andjust like we've seensome of the wannabe Chipotle knock-offs suffer,some of these companies are going to go away,or they're going to consolidate. You'realso seeing, in the step above that, in yourChili'sandRuby Tuesday, they'restruggling to find a business model. So,I think you're going to see a lot of restaurant closures. You saw a lot last year,whole chains going out of business. I think that'sgoing to continue, and maybe get worse.

Link:

What Automation Can Mean for the Restaurant Industry -- The ... - Motley Fool

Ken makes a decent living operating a large harvester on behalf of farmer Luke. Kens salary generates income tax and social security payments that help finance government programmes for less fortunate members of his community. Alas, Luke is about to replace Ken with Nexus, a robot that can operate the harvester longer, more safely, in any weather, and without lunch breaks, holidays, or sick pay.

Bill Gates thinks that to ease the inequality and offset the social costs implied by automations displacement effects, either Nexus should pay income tax, or Luke should pay a hefty tax for replacing Ken with a robot. And this robot tax should be used to finance something like a universal basic income (UBI). Gates proposal, one of many on the UBI theme, allows us to glimpse fascinating aspects of capitalism and human nature that rich societies have neglected for too long.

The whole point of automation is that, unlike Ken, Nexus will never negotiate a labour contract with Luke. Indeed, it will receive no income. The only way to simulate an income tax on behalf of Nexus is to use Kens last income as a reference salary and extract from Lukes revenue income tax and social security charges equivalent to what Ken paid.

There are three problems with this approach. For starters, whereas Kens income would have changed over time had he not been fired, the reference salary cannot change, except arbitrarily and in a manner setting the tax authorities against business. The tax office and Luke would end up clashing over impossible estimates of the extent to which Kens salary would have risen, or fallen, had he still been employed.

Second, the advent of robot-operated machines that have never been operated by humans means there will be no prior human income to act as a reference salary for calculating the taxes these robots must pay.

Finally, it is hard philosophically to justify forcing Luke to pay income tax for Nexus but not for the harvester that Nexus operates. After all, they are both machines, and the harvester has displaced far more human labour than Nexus has. The only defensible justification for treating them differently is that Nexus has greater autonomy.

But to what extent is Nexus genuinely autonomous in a manner that the harvester is not? However advanced Nexus might be, it can be thought of as autonomous if and only if it develops consciousness, whether spontaneously or with the help of its makers.

Only if Nexus (like the Nexus-6 replicants in the 1982 film Blade Runner) achieves that leap will he have earned the right to be thought of as distinct from the harvester he operates. But then humanity will have spawned a new species and a new civil rights movement (which I would gladly join) demanding freedom for Nexus and equal rights with Kenincluding a living wage, minimum benefits, and enfranchisement.

Assuming that robots cannot be made to pay income tax without creating new potential for conflict between the tax authorities and business (accompanied by tax arbitrage and corruption), what about taxing Nexus at the point of sale to Luke? That would of course be possible: The state would collect a lump-sum tax from Luke the moment he replaces Ken with Nexus.

Gates supports this second-best alternative to making robots pay income tax. He thinks that slowing down automation and creating tax disincentives to counter technologys displacement effect is, overall, a sensible policy.

But a lump-sum tax on robots would lead robot producers to bundle artificial intelligence within other machinery. Nexus will increasingly be incorporated within the harvester, making it impossible to tax the robotic element separately from the dumb parts that do the harvesting.

Either the robot sales tax should be dropped or it should be generalized into a capital goods sales tax. But imagine the uproar against a tax on all capital goods: Woe betide those who would diminish domestic productivity and competitiveness!

Ever since the emergence of industrial capitalism, we have been terrible at differentiating between property and capital, and thus between wealth, rent and profits. This is why a wealth tax is so difficult to design. The conceptual problem of differentiating between Nexus and the harvester he operates would make it impossible to agree on how a robot tax should work.

But why make life under capitalism more complicated than it already is? There is an alternative to a robot tax that is easy to implement and simple to justify: a universal basic dividend (UBD), financed from the returns on all capital. Imagine that a fixed portion of new equity issues goes into a public trust that, in turn, generates an income stream from which a UBD is paid. Effectively, society becomes a shareholder in every corporation, and the dividends are distributed evenly to all citizens.

To the extent that automation improves productivity and corporate profitability, the whole of society would begin to share the benefits. No new tax, no complications in the tax code, and no effect on the existing funding of the welfare state. Indeed, as higher profits and their automatic redistribution via the UBD boost incomes, more funds would become available for the welfare state. Coupled with stronger labour rights and a decent living wage, the ideal of shared prosperity would receive a new lease on life.

2017/PROJECT SYNDICATE

Yanis Varoufakis is professor of economics at the University of Athens and a former finance minister of Greece.

First Published: Wed, Mar 01 2017. 12 11 AM IST

Here is the original post:

How to offset the social costs of automation - Livemint

Rotobec, based in Saint-Justine, Quebec, manufactures equipment that picks up all manner of weighty objects: giant logs, loads of scrap metal, even bundles of railroad ties. Up to 2015, though, connecting salespeople to service records was too much of a heavy lift.

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Salesforce automation got Rotobec's sales staff off "these precious little notebooks," as director of service Jesse Roy put it, in which they recorded all the data about customer conversations, and facilitated its spread throughout the company in 2009. It wasn't until 2015, however -- when the company added Salesforce Desk case management and help desk integration -- that sales and service data connected.

"Our service efforts were struggling," Roy said "It was time we implemented CRM for service. Like sales, service is incredibly important, but it's just not as visual as the sales department because we don't make money, we spend money."

Roy's customer support staff of 10 agents handles an average of 1,000 cases a week. Through Desk reports that analyze volume and help him set metrics for improvement, he's grown his department by showing need with BI tools that analyze response times and service quality.

Rotobec got its start in 1975 in the logging sector, staking its claim as the first North American manufacturer of a 360-degree, continuously rotating attachment for forestry loaders.

Most people, when they think of construction equipment, imagine an excavator and a scoop, or a bucket. Rotobec improves on that standard design with rotating grapples, or claws, for specialized markets, such as bulk material handling, waste and rail.

Today, the company supports manufacturing facilities in three countries, and sells through a dealer network extending to 35 countries.

Rotobec implemented Salesforce automation in 2009, choosing Salesforce because its mobile sales staff could upload data to the system more quickly and, unlike other CRM systems at the time, it didn't require a virtual private network connection and the company-supported IT infrastructure.

Roy said the general idea behind adopting CRM automation was not only to share information about sales with a wider audience within the company, but also for production planning. Because Rotobec spans several different industries, it wasn't always obvious which one needed attention next.

"We work on lean flow manufacturing," Roy said, referring to the model of just-in-time inventory and minimizing parts and labor waste, a strategy many factories have adopted over the past few decades. "Not knowing what [sales] opportunities are there, it's really hard to plan your next fiscal year when you have no idea what's in the pipeline."

Before implementing Salesforce automation, Rotobec did quarterly analyses for upcoming production, and sort of ballparked estimates from sales staff feedback. Now, Roy said, they can create much more accurate in-quarter reports and adjust production as sales updates its pipeline in their various industries.

As Salesforce added features and the manufacturing company grew over the years, Rotobec added business intelligence and quoting modules (separate ones for domestic and international quoting) with the help of third-party contractors.

Desk integration has ported some of those 1,000 weekly service cases to self-service, but more importantly, the Desk integration has connected help desk data to sales, which has created new workflow efficiencies to assist field salespeople.

When Rotobec initially chose Salesforce in 2009, Roy led an evaluation team that considered several different data systems for his service group. Having been a longtime Salesforce user, Desk was the likely choice, but the team did a competitive analysis, looking at Mize, GE Digital's ServiceMax and Maximizer's service side system.

In fact, Rotobec considered Salesforce Service Cloud, as well, but decided Desk was more appropriately scaled for its operations. Desk won out because of its ease of use and minimal IT support, as well as because of the integration between Desk and the sales systems, which push updates in real time to each other.

Connecting sales and service -- which cost about $20,000 to switch on, including third-party assistance and about $10,000 per year for Salesforce Desk subscription fees -- gave salespeople up-to-date information about service issues a dealer's customers might be experiencing. Rotobec sales staffers can update their dealers on ongoing service activity among the dealers' customers who are using Rotobec equipment.

"Our sales [people] were no longer walking into a death trap, so to speak," Roy said. "They weren't getting ambushed by [dealer] salespeople saying, 'Where is this case we're dealing with, this situation, what's going on with it?' Now, before they go into a call, they can look for cases, and if there [are] any, they can read all the notes we've input through Desk, and they can be on top of it."

Speaking knowledgeably about open service cases can defuse potentially uncomfortable conversations, and make the salesperson more proactive in managing the relationship. Rotobec eventually added Desk services to manage product registration, warranty management and equipment rebuild program applications.

Jamie Domenici, Salesforce vice president of product and small and medium-sized business (SMB) marketing, said that businesses typically start small with integrations, but, as Rotobec did, find new uses for sales and service data across the enterprise, and add capabilities to the platform as they go along.

"With one platform, you can bring all of your customer interactions into one place," she said.

Taken together, digitizing those processes has led to insights about Rotobec's products they couldn't see before, such as aggregate views tracking warranty issues that were previously marooned on paper. Patterns in service might indicate a design flaw in a particular model, or other opportunities for more proactive product improvement through failure analysis of service data.

Reporting capabilities in third-party app DataHero, which is connected to Desk, has also led to Rotobec's deeper measurement and analysis of its services, giving Roy a means to identify opportunities to improve his team's response times and quality of service -- and, by extension, improve customer experience to drive business.

"We've turned a service department of three into a service department of ten, with call volumes exceeding anything we've seen before," Roy said, describing the growth of the company and the value of the data his service department generates for the organization. "And we can track and build on that if we need to because we have the hard data to back that up."

Desk 360 promotes multichannel customer service

SMBs benefit from Salesforce Desk upgrade

Salesforce Assistly customer service acquisition integrated as Desk

Read more from the original source:

Salesforce automation connects sales, service data for manufacturer - TechTarget

Agriculture.com

Dawn Debuts Total Planter Automation System Agriculture.com Dawn Equipment Company came to the 2017 National Farm Machinery Show with a whole new automated planting system made up of three components active down pressure (ADP), active depth control (ADC), and an active closing system (ACS) that ...

See more here:

Dawn Debuts Total Planter Automation System - Agriculture.com

Hungary - Most metal processing enterprises feel the need for automation on their own skin, but yet many are reluctant to give in to substitute the human factor with automated procedures, despite the workforce shortage.

The field of sheet metal machining is getting more ready to automate certain procedures, such as loading and unloading sheet metal and finished products or other warehousing procedures, says Tamas Major, CEO of Trumpf Hungary ltd, in an interview with MM Mszaki Magazin.

MM Mszaki Magazin: Where do you mainly recommend automation in sheet metal machining?

Tamas Major: We feel an increasing interest in automated systems in Hungary since 2014 and by now, we have arrived at the point that both the biggest companies and SMEs are dealing more and more seriously with the rationalisation of sheet metal processing procedures. Trumpf's old and new systems have a spectacular role mainly in warehousing and ghost shifts (several hours of manufacturing or even full shift without machine operators). The question of automation versus workforce is always being debated. The need for automation arises mainly where complex systems are in question. If a manufacturer has a good stock of orders and consequently the utilisation of, for example, laser cutting machines is high, after a time, they will develop flexible manufacturing capacity instead of increasing its technological capacity.

MM Mszaki Magazin: What levels of automation are there?

Tamas Major: Trumpf has many solutions for automating sheet metal processing machine tools, beginning with sheet loading units, palette changers equipped with palette magazines, up to warehousing systems listed without the need for completion.

Beyond a certain level, efficiency cannot be increased solely by expanding manufacturing capacity and automation is indispensable.

MM Mszaki Magazin: You have recently moved to a new domicile.

Tamas Major: Yes, Trumpf has been doing all domestic activities of its two major lines of business, machining tools and laser technology, in a single firm since 2014. We began work in 2015 in Vecss, in the vicinity of the Liszt Ferenc International Airport. The sales and training centre of the 48-man strong company has also moved here. Good infrastructure was important: the airport, highways, hotels are near and we are part of the international blood circulation. More than half of our colleagues work in the field of technological customer care but we put a great emphasis on after-sales support and training.

http://www.hu.trumpf.com

This interview appeared http://www.maschinenmarkt.international.

01/25/2017 - Is globalisation a blessing or a curse? During the last year, everything pointed towards the latter. The influence of politics on the European economy has been particularly strong in 2016. The future impact on European tool and mould makers is uncertain. read...

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Automation at top level - ETMM Online

Forbes

Looking Ahead: Jobs That May Never Be Automated Forbes In a recent article, a few Forbes Technology Council members examined what jobs they think will be automated in the next five to 10 years. But what about the flip side of the issue: What kind of positions or work will be safe from the automation process?

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Looking Ahead: Jobs That May Never Be Automated - Forbes

Could machines really steal jobs?

Gates thinks so.

He's concerned forthe millions of people working in jobslikely to see automation in factories and warehouses, truck and taxidrivers and whether they will be able tofindwork if robots take away their jobs.

In aninterview with the Quartz, Gatessaid industriesand governments needto start looking intothe social consequences of replacing people with robots.

Gates's suggestionhastechnology buffs concerned.

His commentscome at a time whenUS President Donald Trump has ignited debate on how peopleare tired of the government's inability tostem job losses and addressgrowing income inequality.

The tech billionaireandphilanthropisthas proposed an additional taxon companies where robots replace humans. Gates said the tax revenueshould be used to train people for jobs that are available.

A million people who work as delivery truck drivers risk losing their jobs as more companies opt for self-driven vehicles to cut costs. (AP)

There will always be work where human interactionis important, such as teaching and nursing, Gatessaid.

A robot tax, really?

Companies that automate production and serviceswill paythe tax, Gates explains.

But these companieswill also be saving as they won't payincome tax, contribute to social security and have disability insurance. This means that despite the tax, theywill still see increased profits.

Should people be afraid of technology?

The threat that new technology will take away jobs from humans goes back 200 years.

But recenttechnological advancements haveraised anxiety. Half of the jobs in developed countries such as the US are atrisk of being automated,research fromOxford Universityshows.

There was a time when telephone companies employed people to operate switchboards but then came automatedsystems, ending the need for humans.Tractors and mechanical harvesters forced millions of farmers to migrate tocities.

It's not just assembly-line jobs that the fast-learning algorithms threaten to take over. It seems the work that requireshuman thinking and knowledge will alsobe taken overby computers in a few years.

University-educated radiologists now face being replaced bycomputers that cananalyse images accurately and faster, writes Martin Ford in his bookRise of the Robots.

News organisations are using the algorithm of Automated Insights to produce reports faster than journalists. (Getty Images)

But is automation all that bad?

Opinion is divided.

Critics argue that slowing down automation could stallgrowthand hurt the economy. And machines are more efficient and can produce more.

Amazon opened a store last year where customers walk in, pick up products and walk out without stopping at the cashier. The payment is charged to their online accounts. Such stores can eliminate millions of jobs around the world. (Getty Images)

There are somelike financial columnist, Matthew Lynn,who arguethat technology that destroys jobs hasthe potential to create new ones.

"Gates, who destroyed the typing pool with word-processing software, should know that better than anyone."MicrosoftWord helped millions of people become writers and online content developers.

The Economist said Gates's proposal could help maintainsocial stability but it would also mean higher costs for services such as healthcare.

Gates's backers say immediate action needs to be taken.

QuincyLarson, who runs the Free Code Camp, said in hisblogthat the threat of automation displacing millions of workers is very real.

He cites the example of Amazon Go stores where people can pick up their grocerieswithout going through cashier lines. The bill is charged automatically to a customer's Amazon account.

This Wired video shows the efficiency gains warehousing companies can have by employing robots

Workers should be trained for emerging engineering jobs such as programming work with a portion of taxpayers' money that at the moment is used to subsidised industry, Larson said.

Do other tech giants support Gates?

He has some support.

Business tycoon,Elon Musk,who is at the forefront of self-drivingvehicletechnology, alsowants asafety net for people who are replaced by robots.

The founder of Tesla suggestsauniversal basic income for people who become unemployed as a result of automation.

"There would be fewer and fewer jobs that a robot cant do better," he told a conference recently. "These are not things that I wish to happen. These are things that probably will happen."

Waiterscould lose jobs as the restaurant industry adopts automation, according to an Oxford University study. (Getty Images)

In Europe, politicians are already discussing the repercussions of increased automation.

French presidential candidateBenoit Hamonwon the primaries of his socialist party on the back of a promise to establisha universal pay of $810 funded by atax on industrial robots.

Former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis is also a strong believer of "civilising capitalism."

"If you take an iPhone apart, every single technology in it was developed by some government grant, every single one," he said at a discussion with Noam Chomsky last year.

Earlier,a Luxembourg politician,Mady Delvauxsaid in a report that basic income could be funded by a tax on robots.

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Bill Gates wants to slow down automation. Why? - TRT World

Written by: Michael A. Lewis Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center

When I first became interested in the basic income, I was a graduate student studying welfare reform. For those who arent in the know, welfare is the more common name used in the U.S. to refer to a program called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and which used to be called Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). TANF and AFDC arent exactly the same programs, but they do have some key things in common: they provide financial support to low income persons, most of those who receive such support are women and children, and, I think its fair to say, both programs are somewhat controversial.

The controversy around welfare has to do with the fact that many of those who receive benefits are apparently able-bodied persons whore thought capable of working (working in this context means selling ones labor in return for a wage, instead of, say, taking care of ones children, something many would regard as work). Yet not enough of those on welfare are working, according to a common belief among many U.S. citizens/residents as well as, apparently, politicians. So in an attempt to socialize welfare beneficiaries into understanding the importance of work, many of them are required to work in return for their benefits, a practice commonly called workfare. Many also remain poor, even after receiving benefits, because the financial support they receive is pretty meager.

As a graduate student, I thought workfare, as well as the low level of benefits provided to recipients was a very unjust way of assisting poor persons; I also thought we could do better (in fact, I still think these things). My entry into the world of basic income was because I believed it a more just way of addressing poverty than welfare and related programs. Once I started studying basic income and meeting others interested in the idea, I heard other justifications for it. It would enhance freedom, it would allow people to engage in care work if they so choose, it would give people an income representing their share of commonly owned natural resources, it would be a way of replacing some or all of the welfare state (which, of course, assumes there is something wrong with the current system), etc. But the argument that seems to have caught on the most, at least in the U.S., is the idea that a basic income will become necessary as robots/machines take our jobs.

I have to admit that part of me has been a bit concerned about the degree to which the automation argument seems to dominate basic income discussions. My worry is that as we spend so much time debating whos right about whether robots will take most, or perhaps all, of our jobs and, therefore, whether therell be a need for a basic income, other arguments for such a policy get crowded out of the discussion. Yet as Ive voiced this concern, mainly to myself, Ive also wondered why this argument for a basic income seems to have caught on in a way that others havent?

I think part of the answer has to do with where I startedU.S. citizens/residents worry a lot about the degree to which healthy people work to take care of themselves (and their families) and are quite skeptical about policies they believe will allow people to shirk this responsibility. But I think another part of the answer has to do with the role of race in our society.I suspect that in the minds of many citizens/residents the degree to which a basic income would allow people to shirk their obligations to work would vary by race. To put it bluntly, I suspect many assume that black and brown people would be more likely to shirk this responsibility than whites would be. If Im right about all this, then perhaps it shouldnt be surprising that the U.S. isnt naturally the most fertile place for the basic income idea to take hold. But why would it take hold in the form of the automation argument? I think the answer here might be pretty simple. If machines are about to take all our jobs, then automation represents a relatively indiscriminant force. That is, hard working white people might be threatened just as much as lazy shiftless brown ones are. Perhaps this has been enough to get white folks to take notice of a policy that perhaps could address the problem.

About the author:Michael A. Lewis is a social worker and sociologist by training whose areas of interest are public policy and quantitative methods. Hes also a co-founder of USBIG and has written a number of articles, book chapters, and other pieces on the basic income, including the co-edited work The Ethics and Economics of the Basic Income Guarantee. Lewis is on the faculties of the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College and the Graduate and University Center of the City University of New York.

Michael Lewis has written 3 articles.

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On the 'automation' argument for basic income - Basic Income News

Written by Reena Ghosh Published: 27 February 2017

Page 1 of 2

Machine learning is quickly overtaking workers in a variety of job roles and career disciplines. Even in the complex and highly technical IT realm, there is cause for concern. Or is there?

Have robots been making you a bit nervous of late? Not the bad sci-fi kind of robots, with lasers and spaceships. No, I'm talking about the boring everyday industrial robots that are quickly becoming better at doing ... all kinds of different things.

Many have worried that machines that are able to learn, decide, and execute may eventually replace humans even in high-skill jobs. Although the U.S. IT industry saw an increase of 198,200 net jobs in 2015, a number of IT professionals fear losing work to automation and are uncertain about their future in the sector.

Whether the 2013 prediction by Oxford University researchers Carl Frey and Michael Osborne that "47 percent of all jobs in the United States (will) be lost to automation by 2033 is realistic or not, its a fact that machine learning, robotic process automation (RPA) and artificial intelligence are rendering a number of occupations obsolete.

Extinction of jobs, however, is nothing new. Over the centuries, many occupations have vanished or morphed into different jobs. The advent of electricity saw lamplighters lose their jobs. Similarly, refrigeration made ice cutters redundant and advancements in phone technology put many a switchboard operator out of work.

So, the question today is not whether jobs will be lost, but which jobs are likely to disappear. Many rote, predictable tasks have already been automated, and efforts are now on to automate cognitive functions such as the collection and processing of data.

As technology continues to evolve, automation will increase but that isnt necessarily a threat. Many see it as an opportunity. Attitude is of key importance here. Engaging with automation rather than resisting it will enable one to successfully adapt.

Whose Job Is Already On the Line?

So, what kinds of IT jobs can already be done by machines, or are likely to be handled in the near future by automated processes? If your role comprises predictable, repetitive tasks, it will likely be automated sooner rather than later. Machines are already capable of performing routine work in predictable circumstances.

For many IT workers, routine work forms only part of their job, in which case job modification is a possibility. As an example, those who spend a lot of time processing data, generating reports and documenting tickets could move on to creative and strategic activity once their more routine tasks are automated.

According to a KPMG survey, roughly 75 percent of U.S. tech CEOs surveyed expected at least 5 percent of roles in marketing, sales and technology to be lost to automation and machine learning. In 2016, McKinsey and Company reported that some jobs at higher skill levels might also be at risk if those jobs could be executed by software programs.

Already, many IT workers use automated tools to perform a variety of functions. Some of the most common automation processes are group policies, custom scripts and update tools.

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Don't Fear the Robot: It's Time to Embrace Automation - Go Certify

The Hindu

Automation likely to displace 60% of workforce: HR honcho The Hindu When nearly 60 % of the global workforce is likely to be displaced in future due to automation and artificial intelligence, Mr. Hari said generating workable ideas, and improving delivery mechanism would aid in reshaping organisational culture. and more »

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Automation likely to displace 60% of workforce: HR honcho - The Hindu

Outlining a modern approach to networking that catalyzes and enables digital transformation.

sponsored

To unlock exponential growth and business transformation, companies need to create a network thats responsive, agile, and easily managed one that is automated to help companies adapt to shifting business needs. Juniper Report: Will Your Company Survive The Next Big Disruption? IT As The Great Enabler

As we transition to the all-digital, all-the-time connected world of people, things and processes driven by cloud, mobility, IoT and analytics demands on your network are skyrocketing. By 2020 there will be 4.1 billion Internet users, 26.3 billion networked devices and connections, and datacenter traffic willjump 330%. Networks must become more flexible, scalable, interoperable, easier to manage, secure and supportive of applications to enable this transformation, and this makes automation an increasingly attractive option.

IT decision makers (ITDMs) believe automation is the cornerstone strategy to increase network agility and reliability while controlling OpEx and CapEx, i.e. automating the 20% of networking tasks that take up to 80% of the staffs time. However, while most ITDMs see automation as essential i.e. only 16% to 30% of daily network administrative tasks have been automated; 80% of businesses experience network errors caused by human mistakes on a regular basis; and non-automated networks average 5-6 errors per month fewer than 40% say theyve managed to deploy automation meaningfully. The top budgets barriers to technology updates are security and compliance, employee skill sets, legacy network technology and organization structure.

Network automation is not the only solution to this onrushing digital disruption, but it gives all businesses, big or small, the ways to stay ahead. A network thats responsive, agile and easily managed one that is automated can help companies adapt to shifting business needs. And it can be surprisingly affordable: an average Return on Investment of 349% over five years and payback in as little as six months.

Network Automation Benefits

One of the biggest benefits of network automation is lower operational expense. By eliminating tedious and manual processes through automated and orchestrated infrastructures, you not only extend your networks capabilities but also achieve a faster ROI.

Automation also reduces errors and builds resiliency. In addition to automating manual tasks to minimize network errors, many solutions automatically respond to network errors without intervention, improving business resiliency and ensuring employees have access to the applications and data they need whenever they need it.

Junipers approach to automation is to reduce operational complexity through simplification and abstraction, enabling customers to deploy new network services faster, and improve capacity utilization and network resiliency through deep telemetry. These zero touch networks rely on telemetry, automation, machine learning, and programming with declarative intent. For example, our Zero Touch Provisioning (ZPT) allows you to automate Day One provisioning and configuring tasks on our switches and routers, saving time and resources, and eliminating costly errors.

In addition to all the other benefits, the potential savings from network automation are also significant. An IDC study found that companies lowered their networking costs by 33% using network automation solutions from Juniper.

The bottom line is that you need to automate your network to ensure its speed, reliability, efficiency, and flexibility will meet your needs today and tomorrow. Your network is the essential link between you and your customers, your critical applications and your staff and partners. In a digital world, the network is everything, and automation is the capability that will help make it future-proof.

Network Automation: Build or Buy?

Once youve decided that you want to automate your network, the next decision is do you do it yourself, outsource, or some combination of both? Answering these questions can help you make your decision:

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Network Automation: Adding Up the Cost Savings and Benefits - CIO

Forbes

Luddites Against Job-Killing Automation And Technology Enthusiasts Creating New Industries Forbes This week's milestones in tech history include the first mass movement fighting automation, the first photography studio in New York, and the first meeting of the hobbyists club where the first Apple computer was demonstrated throughout its development.

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Luddites Against Job-Killing Automation And Technology Enthusiasts Creating New Industries - Forbes

As technology advances, we are finding newer and cheaper ways to manufacture goods and offer services.

This has come in the form of job automation and artificial intelligence (AI), where the value of human labor decreases resulting in massive losses of jobs. Approximately 47 percent of the entire US work force is predicted to phase out with the progression of automation and AI.

Before Obama left the White House, he left a strong message for Americans stating that strong measures need to be taken in order to prevent millions of job losses. So far, there have been two major proposed solutions to these concerns: Universal Basic Income (UBI) and robot taxes.

It sounds strange that wed be forcing a non sentient object to pay taxes, but many people including Bill Gates have sided with this option. Gates stated that if you tax robots, youll prevent the loss of income tax revenue normally made by human laborers. The total taxed amount could then be used to retrain and prepare displaced human workers for employment again.

But how much would you know to tax robots? Would the amount be the same across all robots? It all sounds like a logistical nightmare. But companies who opt for automation and AI in their labor force would pay tremendous up-front costs on top of the potentially hefty tax amount. It could possibly deter companies from even moving towards using robots in the first place.

Got a pulse? Well youre in luck. Universal Basic Income (UBI) is making waves as another popular alternative.

The basic idea of UBI is that every citizen of a country receives a monthly stipend that they can use to cover living expenses. This amount requires no fine print, you pretty much just have to be alive.

Elon Musk swears by UBI, but economists are still debating on whether or not the practice is cost effective. The cost of the welfare program could exceed the overall benefit. Its also necessary to mention the biggest concern for UBI, which is the question of motivation. If a person is handed a check every month for doing nothing, what incentive would they have for trying to find employment?

Finland recently launched its UBI program for 2,000 lucky Finnish citizens, with a couple success stories already floating around.

Juha Jarvinen was one of the 2,000 recipients of UBI, and he stated that the checks would greatly motivate him to restart his previously failed business. The practice was also tested in India by several different NGOs, who found that workers who received cash handouts doubled production rates.

For the generation of millenials, the shift to job automation might not be as bad. Considered the generation to hop through jobs, millenials have been shown to place more emphasis on personal fulfillment rather than income.

For the others who rely on a consistent job and have found employment with the same company for many years, we need to take quick action in developing new occupations and industries. Whether it be UBI or robot taxes, we are still going to face mass job automation and artificial intelligence looming over the labor force in the coming years. Its importantto prevent the problem rather than creating a solution once it happens.

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Taxing Robots and Free Money in a Future of Job Automation - Futurism

If you have been watching political tectonics on both sides of the Atlantic, you may have noticed that analysts are increasingly getting it wrong: "it" being economics, politics, and social trends. The all of it, wrong. Why is this?

We are now deep into a digital transformation, and a new way of thinking and working and living. The business models of our past are faltering. Legacy thinking is virtually unfit for this digital age. The reality is that the conditions within which humanity operates are not what they used to be. Yet, thousands of self-proclaimed experts continue their important work with obsolete methods and mindsets, outdated hardware and software.

A prime example of this is the hysteria that surrounds automation and artificial intelligence. Almost every newspaper and media outlet warns of an apocalyptic future when technology will fracture the employment landscape. As a result, many fear that technology is creating job-stealing robots.

On that score, there are many lessons to be learned from our past.

For example, the industrial revolution taught us that as traditional jobs disappear, we need to ensure that people of all ages are sufficiently educated to prepare and take advantage of the new emerging roles in our immediate future.

Burying our heads in the sand and arming our children with skills for roles that will no longer exist is certainly not the answer. Neither is clinging to business models of the past or recreating the good-old days. The times demand new skills, new mindsets, new competencies, and new institutions.

This backward glance is one of the problems that I encountered with President Trump's campaign slogan "Make America Great Again." This is not a post against our President, I respect him and respect our presidency. This is not about politics. It's about vision. It is impossible to go back in time or to recreate the past. Building a better and brighter future is the only way forward.

If we compare the jobs of one hundred years ago to the jobs of the present, we would be stunned by the standard of living and the thankless work. Creative directors, content strategists, app developers and social media managers are a product of our times. The mentality of doing what you love is also a product of the epoch.

Indeed, hundreds of traditional roles have disappeared over the years, but they have been replaced with new job titles for our digital age.

The Obama administration had published a report to Congress in February 2016 (link here) that was subsequently removed - I cannot seem to find the PDF anywhere on the web anymore. The HuffPost had also discussed the contents of this report when it was published. I quote from that report:

Despite the big scary headlines, we are not running out of work. The challenge that faces society and government is that many people see the available jobs as, on the one hand, unworthy of them. On the other, they see themselves as lacking the skills to qualify.

It is true that the growing demise of middle-skill jobs could cause employment polarization where lower paid workers serve the more affluent without upward mobility. This dynamic would undoubtedly be a step backward. Howeveronce againthe lessons learned from past economic transformations suggest it does not have to be this way.

For example, today it is difficult to imagine that people once blamed the tractor for killing agricultural jobs. In fact, this new machine left an entire generation without work on farms. It also led to the inception of the high school movement, which then led to greater investment in education and ultimately created tremendous prosperity.

Although we often congratulate ourselves for just how far we have come as a society, the truth is that we have the same problems today as we did 200 years ago.

Whether they be the Luddites of the early 1800s or the analysts and journalists of 2017, the issues are essentially the same. The fear of machines, robots, and technology rendering humans obsolete and taking away our jobs.

Make no mistake that many traditional roles we hold dear will slowly disappear. The transition from an analog to a digital world will not be easy. To thrive, we will need to invest in ourselves rather than in things. We will need to secure for ourselves the relevant skills to succeed.

This transition is as it should be for the same reason that we probably dont want to carry on the work of our grandparents. Not to say preserving a legacy is entirely unwanted, but it is not a sustainable policy for an entire societyespecially one in flux like ours.

As technology continues to pervade every aspect of human life, changewithin us and around uswill remain the only constant. Sure, there are challenges and difficult decisions ahead of us. Take heart. Our destiny is in our hands, not in the hands of the machines we create. Dont let any publication tell you otherwise.

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Why Automation Will Create, Not Destroy, Jobs - Huffington Post

Cisco Blog > SP360: Service Provider

It is a disruptive time for communications service providers, and more is coming along the way. So why not disrupt it ourselves?

Service providers must contend with rising costs due to applications explosive bandwidth consumption, commoditization and erosion of traditional business, new business models challenging existing operational processes, tough regulation, and increased competition from non-traditional players. While capital costs are a big item on the books, the operating expense can easily be 4-5X the capex spend.

In short: Network scale and bandwidth requirements are exploding.

And as we have seen over the past years, service providers have to focus on both lowering cost and finding new sources of revenue growth at the same time.

So, where is the good news? Pervasive video, gaming, virtual reality, digitization, enterprise IT services and IoT offer great new opportunities. The foundation for succeeding in these new markets is speed and agility in operating all aspects of the network, cloud, applications and security with service delivery velocity.

Implementing a strategy for network automation that saves OPEX and enhances velocity is essential. We have seen several technologies maturing over the past years that provide the required agility into networks that are part of this strategy.

Software Defined Networking (SDN) and its associated SDN controllers bring advanced programmability into the network. However, the technical focus initially was all about a protocol. Now, as technology continues to evolve, the discussion is shifting to operations and automation.

One of the enabling technologies to support this shift is Network Function Virtualization (NFV). NFV separates the control and user plane and allows service providers to expand into automation and manage increased network flexibility and deployment options. If you thought a physical network was tricky, think about a virtual or hybrid network, where functions can spin up at any time anywhere in the network.

SDN and NFV can help combat cost challenges while rapidly delivering capabilities for new business opportunities. However, for a full automation of the network operations, more capabilities are needed.

Cisco is complementing these technologies with Cloud Scale model-driven telemetry for real-time visibility into the network. WAN Automation Engine (WAE), Network Services Orchestrator (NSO) and EPN Manager (EPN-M) capabilities will take network automation to the next level. The foundation will be a modular software structure leveraging deep expertise in multi-domain networks to tailor technologies and drive tangible business outcomes that can be realized now. Innovation that leverages massive real-time visibility, and machine learning techniques will completely transform network operations from a descriptive to a proactive model.

However, the automation challenge will not be solved with modular integration alone. As service providers define their business cases, they will see a shift from developing and testing technology to driving integrated solutions with immediate, quantifiable business outcomes. Solutions like NFV Infrastructure (NFVI) and Management and Orchestration (MANO) automate the entire NFV stack. Virtual Managed Solutions enable service providers to deliver SD-WAN services to their enterprise customers faster. And solutions can include components from multiple vendors and best of breed open-source.

This is an exciting time, and we have many more solutions to come for network automation. Through implementing a comprehensive strategy, our customers network operations are experiencing a radical transformation a transformation that can boost service velocity, with the potential to completely change the operating expense and balance sheet for a service provider now.

Service providers are seeing a tremendous opportunity to leverage and adapt their networks to serve as a digital innovation platform, building a business partner ecosystem that can deliver innovative and profitable services to their end consumers.

Cisco is the best partner in this digitization journey. By helping service providers build cloud-scale networks and services through intelligent automation, we are enabling them to create a new kind of network platform that can position them for success now and into the future.

Find more information on The insider track for service providers and WAE 7.0

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Radical Transformation of Network Operations Transformation ... - Cisco Blogs (blog)

SAN FRANCISCO As Katy Franco waited for her morning coffee, passersby pulled out their phones and snapped photos and video of her barista.

One did a double-take, recorded the scene on his iPhone and posted it to Instagram. Another drifted toward the barista and asked no one in particular: Whats going on here?

Francos barista was a robot. Its part of an automated coffee shop called Cafe X the latest example of dual infatuations: artisanal coffee and automation.

Its incredibly convenient, said Franco, who has visited Cafe X twice since it opened at the end of January. And the coffee is really good, too.

Franco had ordered her coffee using an X mobile app. Now a white robotic arm, the kind used in car manufacturing facilities, was moving around a paper cup, pushing on syrup levers and brewing her a hot cup of coffee.

I prefer this because you dont have to wait, said Franco, whose coffee was made in less than a minute. It even accepts PayPal.

Comments like Francos ring as validation to Henry Hus ears. Hu, a 23-year-old college dropout who founded Cafe X, envisioned his coffee kiosk as the answer to long waits at coffee shops: a well-made cup of coffee delivered quickly, efficiently and at a relatively low cost. A flat white at Cafe X is $2.95, compared with $3.75 at Starbucks no tip required.

On the speed front, Cafe X can make a hot espresso beverage in less than a minute and is able to pump out 120 coffee drinks in an hour. A Cafe X kiosk can occupy as little as 50 square feet, although its footprint in San Franciscos Metreon shopping mall is a little over 100 square feet and was most recently home to another automated tenant: a Bank of America ATM.

Encased in plexiglass, the kiosk contains two coffee machines equipped to brew Americanos, espressos, cappuccinos, lattes and flat whites. Customers can order their drink from the Cafe X mobile app or at one of two iPads mounted outside the kiosk. The entire transaction is cashless, and customers even get a notification on their phone when their coffee is ready.

Its similar to calling an Uber, said Hu, who sees his kiosk as filling a void. Its for people who want a grab and go coffee, who want consistency.

Tech investors have started dipping their toes in the food industry, backing the meal replacement startup Soylent, the fake meat firm Impossible Foods and specialty coffee roaster Blue Bottle, among others. Cafe X is raising cash from those who seek a confluence of the familiar (technology) and the new (food).

In addition to securing a $100,000 Thiel Fellowship last year (a grant awarded by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiels foundation to college dropouts who want to form their own companies), Hu has raised $5 million in venture capital to expand Cafe X to more locations. His 12-person startup built the first Cafe X kiosk in Hong Kong last year. The second kiosk and the first in the United States sits across from an AMC ticket counter inside the Metreon.

People, millennials in particular, dont want to wait in line, said Ben Ling, an investor from Khosla Ventures, whose firm has also invested in the automated San Francisco quinoa restaurant Eatsa. Cafe X really solves that problem of the ordering efficiency. From a user perspective, its vastly superior.

Automation helps keep costs low for business owners, which in turn makes products and services more affordable for consumers, Ling said. Thats why automation particularly in the food service and hospitality industries seems inevitable.

Self-driving cars are already being tested on U.S. roads. Manufacturing facilities and warehouses have already automated entire professions. And while a multipurpose robot that can do everything that a waiter or chef can do is still a ways off, artificial intelligence and industrial robotics have advanced to the level where they can begin chipping away at the more menial parts of a food service job.

Anything that has highly repetitive tasks that dont require judgment is suitable to be automated, Ling said.

With job loss a top issue in todays political environment, a coffee shop that does away with baristas or a lunch spot that does away with wait staff could be a reason for outrage. But Eatsa has so far been a hit with office workers in San Franciscos Financial District. And in its first weeks of operation, Cafe X has drawn fast-moving lines and curious crowds who snap photos and videos of the kiosk.

(EDITORS: STORY CAN END HERE)

In Cafe Xs defense, it isnt fully automated. Although it doesnt require a barista, it does need a technician to clean and restock coffee machines, one product specialist to remain on site to answer questions during operating hours, and software and hardware engineers to maintain the app and build out the kiosk. And since the entire operation relies on an internet connection, if the internet is down, so is the kiosk.

A much-hyped, fully automated burger joint by startup Momentum Machines is expected to launch in San Francisco, but its founders declined to be interviewed for this story. No launch date has been announced.

Automation clearly hasnt yet upended the food service industry, at least not when compared with the manufacturing sector, where the making of electrical and transportation equipment, machinery, and computers and appliances will account for around 75 percent of robotics installations over the next decade, according to research from the Boston Consulting Group.

This is just the leading edge, said Martin Ford, author of Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future. The really significant thing will be when the big chains the McDonalds, the Burger Kings, the Starbucks begin to adopt these technologies. Eventually it is going to create a big problem for us.

As of May 2015, the largest overall occupations in the United States, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, were retail salespersons (4.6 million), cashiers (3.5 million), and food preparation and service workers (3.2 million).

Technologists agree that its not a matter of if automation will eliminate these jobs but when. And while an argument can be made that there will always be room for services with a human touch, moves that cut costs have historically trumped those that protect jobs.

The federal government, loud in its proclamation of creating jobs, has been quiet on policies regulating and addressing the fallout from automation. And it seems consumers, for now, would rather not think about it.

I can understand the fear of automation taking our jobs, said Franco, clutching her robot-made coffee. But I also work in the innovation space.

She gestured toward her workplace, the Target Open House showroom about 100 feet from the Cafe X kiosk. The showroom was recently remodeled to better showcase the array of smart-home gadgets for sale. Inside, human employees sell internet-enabled devices that promise to make peoples lives more efficient, connected and automated.

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Automated cafe sets up shop in tech-crazy, fancy coffee-loving San Francisco - Press of Atlantic City

Cisco Blog > SP360: Service Provider

It is a disruptive time for communications service providers, and more is coming along the way. So why not disrupt it ourselves?

Service providers must contend with rising costs due to applications explosive bandwidth consumption, commoditization and erosion of traditional business, new business models challenging existing operational processes, tough regulation, and increased competition from non-traditional players. While capital costs are a big item on the books, the operating expense can easily be 4-5X the capex spend.

In short: Network scale and bandwidth requirements are exploding.

And as we have seen over the past years, service providers have to focus on both lowering cost and finding new sources of revenue growth at the same time.

So, where is the good news? Pervasive video, gaming, virtual reality, digitization, enterprise IT services and IoT offer great new opportunities. The foundation for succeeding in these new markets is speed and agility in operating all aspects of the network, cloud, applications and security with service delivery velocity.

Implementing a strategy for network automation that saves OPEX and enhances velocity is essential. We have seen several technologies maturing over the past years that provide the required agility into networks that are part of this strategy.

Software Defined Networking (SDN) and its associated SDN controllers bring advanced programmability into the network. However, the technical focus initially was all about a protocol. Now, as technology continues to evolve, the discussion is shifting to operations and automation.

One of the enabling technologies to support this shift is Network Function Virtualization (NFV). NFV separates the control and user plane and allows service providers to expand into automation and manage increased network flexibility and deployment options. If you thought a physical network was tricky, think about a virtual or hybrid network, where functions can spin up at any time anywhere in the network.

SDN and NFV can help combat cost challenges while rapidly delivering capabilities for new business opportunities. However, for a full automation of the network operations, more capabilities are needed.

Cisco is complementing these technologies with Cloud Scale model-driven telemetry for real-time visibility into the network. WAN Automation Engine (WAE), Network Services Orchestrator (NSO) and EPN Manager (EPN-M) capabilities will take network automation to the next level. The foundation will be a modular software structure leveraging deep expertise in multi-domain networks to tailor technologies and drive tangible business outcomes that can be realized now. Innovation that leverages massive real-time visibility, and machine learning techniques will completely transform network operations from a descriptive to a proactive model.

However, the automation challenge will not be solved with modular integration alone. As service providers define their business cases, they will see a shift from developing and testing technology to driving integrated solutions with immediate, quantifiable business outcomes. Solutions like NFV Infrastructure (NFVI) and Management and Orchestration (MANO) automate the entire NFV stack. Virtual Managed Solutions enable service providers to deliver SD-WAN services to their enterprise customers faster. And solutions can include components from multiple vendors and best of breed open-source.

This is an exciting time, and we have many more solutions to come for network automation. Through implementing a comprehensive strategy, our customers network operations are experiencing a radical transformation a transformation that can boost service velocity, with the potential to completely change the operating expense and balance sheet for a service provider now.

Service providers are seeing a tremendous opportunity to leverage and adapt their networks to serve as a digital innovation platform, building a business partner ecosystem that can deliver innovative and profitable services to their end consumers.

Cisco is the best partner in this digitization journey. By helping service providers build cloud-scale networks and services through intelligent automation, we are enabling them to create a new kind of network platform that can position them for success now and into the future.

Find more information on The insider track for service providers and WAE 7.0

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Radical Transformation of Network Operations Transformation Through Automation - Cisco Blogs (blog)