Monthly Archives: January 2020

Infor Cloud Solutions to Connect Siloed Applications and Reduce Manual Processes

Infor, a global leader in business cloud software specialized by industry, announced that Pechanga Resort Casinoentered into an agreement with Infinium Software Inc., an Infor company, expanding their long-term technology partnership. Pechanga, the largest resort/casino on the West Coast, chose Infor CloudSuite solutions to further integrate core business processes into a centralized location connected to the reservation department. The new, integrated system will allow the resort/casino to make more informed business decisions from anywhere, anytime, on any device. Infors innovative cloud technologies, built to work hand in hand with the world-class capabilities of Amazon Web Services, will provide Pechanga with more adept abilities to query data within seconds. Pechanga has been an Infinium customer since 2001, and an Infor HMS and Infor EzRMS customer since 2016.

Pechanga will implement Infor CloudSuite solutions created specifically for the hospitality industry to better support financials, supply management, human capital management, analytics, and workforce management. These flexible applications can provide business leaders with new insights and real-time data to make decisions quickly that may improve bottom-line results. Specifically, workforce management software and human capital management applications will help support better labor optimization, planning, and time and attendance. An integrated finance and supply management software solution suite will couple modern financial functionality with tools to track supplies and streamline order processes.

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For years, Pechanga has found success with Infor HMS, which has provided it a complete view of all guest value information in one system. This has enabled Pechanga to provide tailored recognition of known players and new guests who are seeking the broader resort experience Pechanga offers. In addition, Infor EzRMShas helped Pechanga automatically calculate demand forecasts for each future use of their hotel rooms and determine the appropriate selling strategies, such as open/close rates, stay controls, open/close room categories, and overbooking levels. Its deep learning AI algorithms recognize patterns dynamically to help ensure accurate business forecasts and optimal pricing recommendations.

Infor Hospitality has been a partner to our organization for a long time, and expanding our technology partnership with them gives us a more streamlined approach and flexibility, said John Kenefick, chief information officer, Pechanga Resort Casino. Infors cloud infrastructure, network services and industry-specific application design will give us more reliability, security, and scalability.

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With Infor solutions, teams at Pechanga will benefit from a simple and predictable path to upgrade from on-premise applications to the cloud. The organization will immediately benefit from quick user interaction experiences and deeper industry functionality that helps retire customizations to provide more thorough analytics and simpler integration.

We are able to provide our customers with industry-first cloud technology, unmatched depth of functionality, and low risk implementations, said Jason Floyd, general manager, Infor Hospitality. The gaming industry continues to become more crowded, so partnering with a technology provider that understands specific pain points in the business and what successful bottom-line results should look like is a competitive advantage in todays industry. Infors hospitality-specific cloud applications quickly automate timeworn processes, decrease costs, and ultimately improve the guest experience.

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Pechanga Resort Casino Drives Automation and Visibility with Infor CloudSuite - MarTech Series

The argument for supporting women to raise their skills in order to thrive in the labour markets of the future is compelling. Employers should pay particular attention to the needs of women who face new pressures from automation, on top of the perennial difficulties they already face in the world of work. McKinsey Global Institute predicts as many as 160 million may need to change jobs in the age of automation nearly one-quarter of all women employed today.

The challenge is not so much who gets hit hardest by automation the impact is roughly the same order of magnitude for women and men but how well individuals are prepared to adapt. This is where women need targeted support.

If women can make the necessary transitions, they could be on a path to more productive, higher-paid work. If the opportunity is not available to them, the gender pay gap may widen, and many women may even leave the labour force as demand for lower-skilled jobs declines. There has been progress, but it has been slow. Companies are promoting diversity but on the current trajectory it will take more than 20 years to reach parity in executive positions, according to the McKinsey Diversity Matters database. This progress could be derailed if women are not helped to make the transitions they need in the face of automation.

More women need occupational transitions by 2030 to remain employed.

Image: McKinsey Global Institute

We know this matters. McKinseys research has found companies in the top quartile for diversity are 15-24% more likely to outperform their peers on earnings before interest and taxation (EBIT) margins than are companies in the bottom quartile. In UK and US data, we found companies with more than 30% women on their executive teams were almost 40% more likely to outperform on EBIT margins than those with 10- 30% women executives.

More than ever, men and women need to develop the skills that will be in demand, the mobility needed to negotiate labour-market transitions, and the access to, and knowledge of, the technology required to work with automated systems. Today, women face relative challenges across all three areas. We are arguing for tailored support from companies, supported by government policy, to enable women to overcome these barriers.

Lets look at the three keys to the future of work for women:

The key arbiter of success or failure in making these transitions will be different and higher skills. In five of the six mature economies studied, we expect net demand for labour to be positive only for jobs requiring a college or advanced degree. In three of the four emerging economies studied, net labour demand for occupations requiring secondary education could rise sharply. MGI research in 2018 found that demand for basic cognitive, physical and manual skills will decline, but that jobs could require up to 55% more time using technical skills and 24% more hours using social and emotional skills by 2030. These substantial shifts in labour demand will require many women to make radical changes to their working lives.

Although the gender gap in education is narrowing, fewer women are graduating in fields that will grow and be vital for future employment. In the United Kingdom, only 37% of first-year full-time female students study science subjects, compared to 48% of men.

The private sector should invest more in reskilling employees, or partner with academic and other institutions. One study found that in 2018, 54% of employers were providing additional training and development opportunities to their existing workforce to fill skills gaps, compared with only 20% in 2014 that share needs to rise further. Public and private investment in digital learning platforms would open up another avenue for women. In the United States, Disneys Code: Rosie initiative recruits and trains women in non-technical positions for software engineering roles, offering 12-month apprenticeships and mentoring schemes.

How government, industry, education and NGO leaders can support job transitions for women

Image: McKinsey

Women are less mobile than men because they disproportionately undertake unpaid care work in the home, compromising their scope for training and paid employment. Technology could give women new flexibility to work remotely in the gig economy or in e-commerce but companies need to expand the range of flexible working options. One 2018 survey of employers found that flexible or remote working options were only offered by 23% of employers. More access to professional networks would help women bolster their chances of moving into higher-paid occupations. For instance, Hilton has created Team Member Resource Groups networks for women and other under-represented groups of employees.

Technology could be the breakthrough that women need, enabling them to work more flexibly in the gig economy. Yet women lag behind men in access to tech, skills and leadership. Globally, men are 33% more likely than women to have access to the internet, and women only account for 35% of STEM students in higher education. Fewer than 20% of tech workers are female in many mature economies. Only 1.4% of female workers have jobs developing, maintaining or operating ICT systems, compared with 5.5% of male workers, according to the OECD. Companies have a role to play, working with educational institutions to develop a broader pipeline of women going into tech fields. In Singapore, many firms have started sending staff members to SkillsFutures Digital Workplace programme. Germany-based software company SAP has set a target and is measuring progress toward it of having 30% of leadership positions filled by women by 2022.

The World Economic Forum has been measuring gender gaps since 2006 in the annual Global Gender Gap Report.

The Global Gender Gap Report tracks progress towards closing gender gaps on a national level. To turn these insights into concrete action and national progress, we have developed the Closing the Gender Gap Accelerators model for public private collaboration.

These accelerators have been convened in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Panama and Peru in partnership with the InterAmerican Development Bank.

In 2019 Egypt became the first country in the Middle East and Africa to launch a Closing the Gender Gap Accelerator. While more women than men are now enrolled in university, women represent only a little over a third of professional and technical workers in Egypt. Women who are in the workforce are also less likely to be paid the same as their male colleagues for equivalent work or to reach senior management roles.

France has become the first G20 country to launch a Gender Gap Accelerator, signalling that developed economies are also playing an important role in spearheading this approach to closing the gender gap.

In these countries CEOs and ministers are working together in a three-year time frame on policies that help to further close the economic gender gaps in their countries. This includes extended parental leave, subsidized childcare and removing unconscious bias in recruitment, retention and promotion practices.

If you are a business in one of the Closing the Gender Gap Task Force countries you can join the local membership base.

If you are a business or government in a country where we currently do not have a Closing the Gender Gap Task Force you can reach out to us to explore opportunities for setting one up.

Armed with knowledge of the transitions women will need to make, now is the time to step up efforts and help women overcome new challenges and old.

The public, private and third sectors need to work together to support women to make the transitions they need to thrive in the automation age. There are concrete, practical ways that companies can play their part: bolstering the pool of talent and fulfilling their commitment to diversity in their ranks. Better to invest now than lose progress made in diversity for companies, for society, and, of course, for women themselves as the automation age takes hold.

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World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

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3 ways to reskill women for the automation age - World Economic Forum

Digital transformation continues to be an exciting andhigh-profilebusiness initiative, but as with everybusiness revolution of the last few decades, its not a silver bullet.

In particular, many businesses have embraced automation as a technology to shift their organization to a new way ofworking, butfailed to understand both the limits of the toolset and the support it requires.

Its vital that companies grasp the potential of automation but realise its limitations too. By helping your staff come to terms with what these technologies offer,yourteamscan advocate formoreintelligent and effective implementation across the business,and ensure the maximum benefit is derived from each tool.

Automation works

Theres no denying that business process automation pays dividends. It can remove or reduce laborious, repetitive work and bring greater accuracy and efficiency to processes and procedures in the workplace.

However, if an organization wants to see more than short term gains and truly realize the potential ROI of the technology, automation needs to be employed intelligently and witha supporting structure that looks at more than just new software.

Scaffolding for success

Thefirstfactor in successful process automation is the process. Without capturing and refining your business processes, even the most effectiveautomation solutions can only achieve so much.

Its another instance of the old programming mantra, garbage in garbage out. If the process itself is inefficient, lacks clarity or is poorly understood, then adding automation may in fact amplify the problems rather than reduce them.

Engage the people who know the process best in the practice of capturing the process, then provide avenues for feedback and continuous improvement. Once the process is clear, compliant and functioning as intended, there are opportunities to identify where automation can bring greater efficiency and effectiveness.

Identifying the systems and structures already in place can help indicate where automation will be beneficial. The users most familiar with the activities can link their steps to the platforms already in play, and this can provide a map of dependencies and connections. For Lean and Six Sigma advocates, utilizing tags or highlights can pinpoint elements that are ripe for optimization.

Reporting these markers across the processes is an effective way of spotting automation opportunities within the business.

Knowing the tools

There are various forms of automation available, and each has its own arena of effectiveness. Like any toolkit, you cant expect any one solution to fit every problem and trying to apply blanket fixes can in fact create more problems.

Rather than grasp the latest trend, carefully considerwhat your needs are. This is where empowering your business teams helps; since theyre the everyday users of the processes, they know them best. By giving them an understanding of the various technologies, they will be able to identify use cases that best suit the tools.

Workflows

Workflows are the connectors between people, processes,andthe systems they use. Workflows take many forms, but theyre ideal for processes where collaboration and creativity are required. What sets workflows apart is their capacity to keep the human element active, while removing monotonous and repetitive tasks.

A workflow will route data between twoagents, oradd and extract records from integrated systems like a CRM, while still engaging your staff in decision making along the way. When empowered with AI tools like sentiment analysis, a workflow can make rudimentary decisions about how to route emails or documentation, who to engage and what level of response to make.

Intelligent Forms

Digital documents like forms are used to reduce both the physical clutter of paper-based records, and the unnecessary repetition of handling the data they contain. Rather than completing a form, then entering that data into digital records, then accessing and employing the information, intelligent formstake care of those steps automatically. By directing clients, staff or other users to intelligent forms, the time taken up by manually processing that data is saved and the potential for errors is reduced significantly.

The other side of this is document generation. Rather than compiling reports, agreements or other documentation manually, a document generation system will access the relevant records and create a custom document, complete with branding and formatting, without needing user input. This aspect of workflow automation eliminates the delay between compiling the data required and producing the documentation it supports. Coupled with digital signature technology, such forms can turn contract cycles into days or hours rather than weeks.

RPA

Robotic process automation (RPA)utilises virtual bots to undertake repetitive manual processes that follow the same path every time without deviation or decision making. They perform manual steps, interacting with legacy systems and other tools like spreadsheets or web interfaces exactly as a human agent would, but faster, more accurately,and tirelessly.

The important distinction here is that these are rote tasks, and the bot is trained to undertake them in the same way a human user would, but without exercising judgement along the way. That makes them very efficient, exponentially faster than a manual user would be, but unable to tackle variations or decision making.

Power to the people

Some of the fear around automation is that it will replace human employees, but as these examples highlight, the tools are best used to free your teams from monotonous tasks so they can focus on value-adding work and bringing creativity to their roles.

By understandingthe strengths and distinctions of process automation solutions, staff can explore how those tools can enhance what they do and increase their efficiency in everyday tasks. By coupling that knowledge with well captured and managed processes, you have a foundation for effective digital transformation that will make the best use of the resources and benefit everyone involved.

Once these approaches are established, they become a self-strengthening cycle of managing, automating and optimizing processes, always evolving both the procedures and the tools supporting them for the very best outcomes.

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Garbage in, garbage out: save your automation efforts from certain failure - Process Excellence Network

Church Brothers Farms in California changed its planting configurations and spacing to accommodate the width of the automated broccoli harvester.Photo by Richard Smith

A critical labor shortage threatens the ability of leafy green and other cool-season vegetable growers to produce and harvest their crops. What can an operation do to gain some control over the crisis? After all, migrant labor availability is subject to political forces outside of the power of the agricultural community.

However, growers are taking proactive steps to address this issue. Theyre teaming with technology companies to develop new automated harvesting technologies and more.

In the Salinas Valley, for example, there has been swift adoption of machines that thin and weed lettuce and other crops. New technologies have also been developed for transplanting (e.g., PlantTape) and irrigating crops (e.g., use of permanent set sprinkler pipe and single-use drip tape).

If the industry could find a way to develop automated harvesting to the point that most growers can use it, it will be a big step forward.

Carrots and potato operations have mechanically harvested for many years. Thats because they can withstand rougher handling and still maintain quality.

Crops like leafy and other cool-season vegetables, however, present challenges for mechanized harvesting because of the delicate nature of the product. As a result, most picking and packing is still being done by hand in order to maintain quality.

Lets take a look at where we are in developing mechanical harvesting and which issues you should weigh before adopting the technology yourself.

The decision to move to mechanical harvest is not straight forward. Here are some practical decision points that interplay and complicate the decision to move toward mechanical harvest:

An early example was the mechanization of baby lettuce, spring mix, and spinach in the early 2000s. Those early machines used a band saw to cut across the width of a high-density, 80-inch-wide bed and lifted the product to a platform. From there, the machine placed the lettuce into totes used to transport the product to the packing facility.

As we shall also see in a subsequent example, in order to make these harvesters work effectively, growers had to change production practices. They shaped beds with power mulchers to create smooth, uniform beds that allowed cutter bars to operate efficiently. High-quality, baby leaf vegetables required specific plant spacing to assure ideal and uniform leaf sizes, which, in turn, required optimal plant populations and planters to assure that spacing.

Just as youll need to change cultural practices for mechanical harvesting, youll also need to adjust your variety choices.

The processing tomato harvester in the 1960s is a classic example of an automated harvester meshing with the appropriate variety. This machine required varieties that ripened uniformly, stored well in the field, separated from the plant easily, and could withstand handling.

Once breeders developed varieties that worked well with the new machines, automated harvesting of processing tomatoes quickly became the industry standard.

A similar example of this type of synergy between machine and variety is underway in the Salinas Valley. Josh Ruiz, Vice President of Ag Operations at Church Brothers Farms, has been developing an automated broccoli harvester for the past five years. It uses a cutting bar for a once-over harvest.

To improve harvest efficiency, Josh collaborated with Seminis Seed Company to use varieties from their high-rise portfolio (e.g., Eiffel and Hancock) that have broccoli heads higher on the plant than traditional varieties.

Seminis Seed Company collaborated with Church Brothers Farms Josh Ruiz, Vice President of Ag Operations, on developing broccoli varieties that work well with automated harvesting equipment.Photo by Richard Smith

Josh says having the broccoli heads located higher up on the plant helps the machines harvest. But equally important, the varieties have good uniformity, which allows efficient harvest and good yields.

Josh has found that to make a mechanical harvester work, you must be willing to change production practices. For instance, Church Brothers Farms has changed both planting configurations and spacing to accommodate the width of the harvester. Their work on their automated broccoli harvester is not 100% complete, as they continue to refine it and make improvements.

Early harvesters work best on whole-head bulk lettuce destined for salad plants and bagged salad products. They cut all the lettuce on an 80-inch-wide bed, lift the lettuce onto a platform where it is hand sorted and deposited into bins for transport to the processing plant.

The quality standards for bulk lettuce are not as stringent as for fresh market lettuce, and these machines work well. However, the cost, speed, and capacity of the machines are important considerations for their use. Also, although this harvester eliminates the need for people to cut lettuce, you still need labor to sort and core it.

Quality standards for fresh market lettuce are more demanding. And harvesters for this type of product are trickier to develop.

The Italian company Ortomec has developed a harvester for fresh market romaine. Bob Sutton of Sutton Ag in Salinas, CA, has worked with several vegetable companies evaluating the Ortomec 9700 Lattuga (type Lattuga on YouTube). He is determining how it can save labor and effectively harvest lettuce.

According to Sutton, issues that companies face when evaluating an automated harvester are the cost of the machine, net savings in labor, and its overall harvest capacity and speed.

A key question is how many machines are needed to satisfy harvesting needs and for addressing breakdowns. A non-selective cutting mechanism that cuts all the lettuce on the bed, like the Ortomec 9700, requires more labor on the platform to sort the product prior to packing.

A machine that uses a selective harvest mechanism (e.g., a mechanical arm) might require less labor for packing. However, it would be more complex and move slower through the field.

These factors make decisions about automating lettuce harvest complex. Understandably, there has not yet been widespread movement to mechanical harvest for fresh market lettuce, although significant progress is being made.

There are still some key challenges remaining.

For one, once the harvester lifts the crop to a packing platform, can trimming, bunching, and bagging be automated? Can computer vision improve which product the harvester selects? These are all questions that engineers are working to resolve.

However, beyond these purely technical questions, for automated harvesters to succeed, they must give a return on investment in a reasonable amount of time. Given high development costs for automated harvest machines, there may be opportunities for companies to work together, collaborate, and pool resources.

These technical factors do not exist in a vacuum. Outside forces could also accelerate industry-wide adoption of automated harvesting.

If, for example, the U.S. decided to suspend the H-2A temporary agricultural worker program, the impetus for automated harvesting would increase dramatically. Likewise, if a new machine could make the work easier (especially important to older workers), or increase worker satisfaction and retention, these could be important factors tipping the balance toward mechanization.

Clearly, we need all technical and financial ideas to adjust to the labor crunch. And we keep growers in the business of providing cool-season vegetables to a demanding marketplace.

Richard Smith is a University of California Vegetable Crop and Weed Science Farm Advisor at the Cooperative Extension in Monterey, Santa Cruz, and San Benito counties. See all author stories here.

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Automation in Vegetable Harvesting Picks up the Momentum - Growing Produce

The research study presented in this report offers complete and intelligent analysis of the competition, segmentation, dynamics, and geographical advancement of the Global Oil & Gas Automation Market. The research study has been prepared with the use of in-depth qualitative and quantitative analyses of the global Oil & Gas Automation market. We have also provided absolute dollar opportunity and other types of market analysis on the global Oil & Gas Automation market.

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Oil & Gas Automation Market is Anticipated to Register a Value of Million by the end of 2017 2025 Dagoretti News - Dagoretti News

RPA is the primary technology for rapidly automating existing user processes across industries

In contrast, a full specification for making tea would require a tea cup, a volume of water, a thermometer, a timer, a measured quantity of tea, etc. It defines what should happen when the thermometer or timer is broken. It would check that the tea cup is large enough to hold the volume of water and describe the result otherwise. The software engineering life cycle describes the formal process of software development from gathering requirements to coding, testing, documenting and delivery. Even in its agile form with minimal up-front specification, the software development process is necessarily formal to understand and capture the objectives and deliver a verified solution that can be understood, integrated into other solutions, maintained and perhaps reused in the future. These are critical, particularly as the number of users and size of the solution increase.

RPA fills the space between the lightweight macros and heavyweight software engineering to efficiently provide solutions. It sometimes utilizes a recorded script (like Excel) that enables a solution to be developed without programming, but more commonly uses a scripting language to construct a rule-based workflow. RPA adds enough documentation and tests to achieve its goal without being generalizable. Unlike the Excel macros that function only in Excel, RPA operates at the user-computer level so it mimics a user actions. This user-interaction approach can even transform the automation of legacy systems written by former employees with no documentation. Rather than trying to understand the system and programming interface (API) yet alone try to rebuild it, RPA can interact with the legacy system and add functionality with a user-level business process understanding. Furthermore, RPA solutions solve existing challenges of software versioning, deploying the software across enterprise computers, auditing processes, enabling access security, load balancing computationally-intensive tasks across systems and even disaster-recovery.

Can we replace our software infrastructure with RPA?

With most businesses today centered around data, companies aim to effectively leverage their data to make better, timely decisions. Software engineering focuses mostly on the storage and access of data, whereas RPA focuses on the user workflows. In that sense, RPA depends on the formal software engineering management of the data and enhances user activities through automation. RPA only manipulates data through the software systems user interfaces which is slower and less efficient than API access, but RPA can be scaled to overcome these limitations. As companies productionize 100s of RPA scripts, the challenge of maintaining, interconnecting and perhaps reusing the scripts will require additional specifications, testing and documentation that encumbers their software engineering counterparts.

RPA is the primary technology for rapidly automating existing user processes across industries. Accounting and finance organizations have led the way due to their repeated auditable processes. In the pharmaceutical space, Pfizer is using RPA for report processing for the FDA, clinical trial management and product labeling. The range of opportunities seems almost endless.

Although RPA has already added significant value to the workplace, it doesnt currently use artificial intelligence (AI).General purpose AI tools such as OCR enable RPA workflows to scan and recognize texts, and some natural language processing capability has entered the workflows but the current RPA technology is mostly running a set of business rules. Enabling AI to assist with each individuals business decisions will require machine learning systems to be trained for each specific human decision. Such training currently requires data science expertise, but recent AutoML advances show promise in training AI systems to make decisions automatically. This enhancement of smart RPA capabilities will certainly transform the workplace.

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The Rise Of Robotic Process Automation - CIO Applications

When it comes to the 2020 Democratic Presidential candidates, theres the boring and then theres the roaring. Perennial frontrunner and former Vice President Joe Biden continues to maintain his sizable lead over opponents and hopes that he can autopilot his way into getting the Democratic nod. Aside from some cringey gaffes, Biden is nowhere near as interesting as former Silicon Valley executive Andrew Yang, who actually has a story to tell about why America is supposedly in a funk and how it can overcome its challenges. Unfortunately, that narrative happens to be dead wrong. But in order to see why, Americans everywhere must understand the seductively simple explanations that the candidate is pedaling.

Yang: Automation is no longer just a problem for those working in manufacturing. Physical labor was replaced by robots; mental labor is going to be replaced by [Artificial Intelligence] and software.

Yang, along with his Yang Gang acolytes, have a story to tell the American people. According to Yang, an increasing wave of automation is shrinking employment, killing labor force participation, and leading scores of depressed and discouraged Americans to get hooked on opioids or worse and eventually take their own lives.

But its important to look at working life in America is today. Most Americans, including Yang, realize that the unemployment rate is the lowest it has been since the 1960s (sub-4 percent at the start of 2020). Ah, but many Americans are discouraged from the job search altogether and these discouraged workers arent counted in the standard definition of the unemployment rate.

To quote our new favorite tech politico (Yang): Labor force participation rate (LFPR) in the United States is 63.2 percent, the same level as Ecuador and Costa Rica. Yang takes the LFPR for granted, and in doing so completely forgets that America is getting older real fast and our balding boomers are retiring en-masse. Fortunately, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics can account for this by looking at the prime labor participation rate, which zeroes in on the 25 to 54 age range. For these eminently employable Americans, the LFPR looks way betterat 82.8 percent as of November 2019. This is (ever so slightly) higher than the rate exactly fifteen years prior, within one percentage point of the rate twenty-five years prior, and two percentage points higher than the rate thirty-five years prior. Theres no evidence whatsoever of a problem with people fitting into the labor force, at least not any more so than in other decades in recent memory.

But life isnt just about statistics; Yang has examples that allegedly back him up. From the candidates website: Over 3 million Americans work as truck driversSelf-driving truck technology is rapidly becoming sophisticated enough to replace these driversSome estimates have the mass production of these vehicles as occurring within the decade. This has potential for serious unrest if not handled properly.

Except, the job of a truck driver cant simply be boiled down to driving for long stretches on the highway. Writing in Harvard Business Review, analysts Maury Gittleman and Kristen Monaco correctly point out that drivers have an array of important roles to play, ranging, from checking vehicles and securing cargo, to maintaining logs and providing customer service. Many of these tasks are nowhere close to being automatable. For example, there is currently no technology available (or being widely tested) to automate the loading or unloading of trucks.

A lot of cool new automation features are slated for mass adaption on-board trucks, such as lane departure protection and automated steering and breaking. Thats a far cry from full automation. Moreover, partial automation simply serves to make truck drivers lives safer and easier. Long driving stretches lead to sleep-deprived truckers, which leads to easily-preventable traffic tragedies. The partial automation actually being tested, rather than the complete automation that lives only within Yang Gang dystopian fantasies, will likely save hundreds of trucker lives rather than lead to mass unemployment.

But what about the deaths of despair allegedly happening in the here-and-now due to automation? Heres Yang again: Americas life expectancy has declined for the last three years in a row, the first time in a hundred years, because of surges in suicides and drug overdoses.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the declining life expectancy can count among its culprits rising overdoses. Yang has focused on the opioid crisis a great deal as a byproduct of declining job opportunities and the rise of robots. But large studies by reputable institutions such as the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston paint a considerably more complicated picture. They study the opioid crisis at the county-level in New England, which lies at the forefront of the overdose and death crisis that has gripped America over the past decade. The researchers examine the relationship between fatal overdoses and prime labor force participation, AND find an interesting and opposite relationship from the one predicted by the Yang Gang.

Thats right: deaths are actually higher in counties with more labor market engagement (albeit not a statistically significant result). Its complicated of course, but its easy to imagine a scenario where job gains are associated with better healthcare and greater access to things like opioids. These pain-relieving medications are a boon to around 99 percent of users, helping make life more livable amidst chronic pain. But widespread access to these revolutionary drugs also leads to the dangerous byproducts of addiction and overdose deaths, which is why its so critical to develop lifesaving counteractive medications such as Naloxone and comprehensive drug counseling programs.

Even in this strong economy, layoffs still happen all the time and job losses can certainly lead to depression, drug use, and possibly even overdoses. Its important to expand opportunities for all Americans, and in particular hard-working people who are having a hard time finding work. But acknowledging that is different from kowtowing to a dystopian narrative based on zero evidence. Yes, America has its fair share of difficulties, but no, that doesnt justify implementing a new open-ended, $2.8 trillion entitlement program that would lead to skyrocketing taxes and less work. Americas economy can continue roaring, but that may require policies and stories a bit more boring than what Andrew Yang has to offer.

The rest is here:

Andrew Yang's Misguided Obsession with Automation | Ross Marchand - Catalyst

In manufacturing, the handshake between man and machine continues to be important to efficiency and quality. This hand-off was critical during a recent deployment of 3D Infotechs Universal Metrology Automation system for robotic 3D scanning and inspection. With variety in part size and geometry, there was a need to eliminate complex fixturing, while also ensuring the correct part was loaded in the correct location.

In order to accomplish this, 3D Infotech developed PartID, a software that easily integrates with any 2D camera. PartID captures the position and orientation of the part, providing operator feedback during placement in the system. Live feedback includes part position outline, direction arrows, and measured confidence levels. Turning green once the confidence percentage crosses a user-defined threshold, the operator may then proceed to run the automated inspection program. Confidence levels that dont meet the threshold prevent the system from proceeding onto the next operation, reducing the chance an error could be made. The robotic scanning system program cannot be executed without verification from PartID.

The type of applications where PartID can be implemented can extend beyond the initial application. Any operation that requires verification of part placement and location can utilize simplified PartID solution. The camera can be mounted as an overhead station or even mounted to the end-effector of a robot. Collaborative robots especially pose as an excellent example where there is an ever growing need for man to work alongside machine.

PartID Features include:

PartID Applications:

For more information: http://www.3dinfotech.com

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The Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) and its automation software supplier have helped Mencap to remove the risks of embarking on an automation project, which ultimately led to the learning disability support charity building a robotic workforce.

The charitys automation journey is a story of how three organisations in contrasting sectors can gain from tech collaboration.

It all began when Vince Gratrick, IT director at Mencap, met up with a former colleague, now working at the Royal Bank of Canada.

I told him how Mencap was keen to use robotic process automation [RPA] technology, but that we hadnt invested in it, said Gratrick. He mentioned that the bank was using RPA from Blue Prism and arranged for some of the Mencap staff to meet up with teams at RBC in London.

RBC showed the Mencap staff what it was using RPA for and offered to take one of its processes and, using a test licence, build a proof of concept that it could demonstrate to the charitys executive team.

The automated process was in the HR department, a deliberate decision to make it more palatable to the staff who would use it, said Gratrick. I didnt want automation to be seen as an IT thing; I wanted it to be seen as a business benefit, he added.

For the demo, Mencap automated the process of filling a change form, which is used if staff change their title or address. This traditionally took three minutes for a human to do, but in the proof of concept through automation, a robot completes it in one minute.

From the meeting with RBC, it took about five months to put together a demo for Mencaps executive team. This may seem slow, but RBC staff worked pro bono and had to fit the work in around their day jobs.

The demo was a success and the project then moved to a new phase. The executives were very pleased to see the demo because it made it real for them and helped them understand what it really means when people talk about robots automating repetitive processes, said Gratrick.

After being given permission to take the project into production, Blue Prism became involved. They were keen to understand how it could maximise its impact in the not-for-profit sector, said Gratrick.

Blue Prism gave Mencap a discounted licence and helped it to start on its RPA journey.

Gratrick said the collaboration demonstrated that if charities that do not have a large IT resource are given a leg-up with RPA, they can start harnessing the technology.

For Mencap, there were three initial pressures in getting started the initial capital investment, understanding what it means, and a cultural barrier with people fearing job losses.

Blue Prism and RBC solved the first two for us and, by making it real, we solved the third, said Gratrick. A lot of charities I speak to are interested, like I was, but dont know how to make it work. There is quite a barrier to entry in terms of skillsets, so what Blue Prism is doing and what RBC helped to demonstrate is the value of a little help getting a charity started.

There has been no financial investment from Mencap, with RBC and Blue Prism covering this, but it will begin to pay an annual licence fee, with a not-for-profit discount, when the implementation is complete.

This will inevitably lead to investment in RPA at Mencap. By getting that leg-up, you begin to cut costs and reinvest in more robots and automate more processes, said Gratrick.

Mencap did not set cost saving targets in the project, and focused on time saving and other metrics, including data quality and customer satisfaction, he added.

Mencap will continue to focus its automation activity on HR processes for now. But by doing this exercise and with the team evangelising, we have identified over 30 different processes that can be automated and thats just the low-hanging fruit, said Gratrick.

He said he has enjoyed being part of a collaboration between three very different organisations doing something really positive and all of them gaining from it. For the RBC guys, it has provided the immense satisfaction of doing something useful and productive, he said. It has been very rewarding for them and they have been very engaged.

Alex Davies, director at RBC, said: RBC is committed to its communities and philanthropic activities, but this project demonstrates a totally new way for us and for other commercial enterprises to partner with charities. We also believe that a partnership between a bank and a charity to deliver RPA is a UK first.

Gratrick said the project has also been a test bed for Blue Prism. It has been useful for Blue Prism to see how you can get software like this into an organisation on a sector that cant have the investment that corporates have, he said.

It could also be a useful case study for charities looking to begin or mature their digital transformation.

Mencap itself is on such a journey, with automation a key part. Gratrick added: A big part of what we are trying to do is digitise what happens in our workforce. We have over 6,000 field-based workers and when I started, these support staff were not digitally enabled.

The first part of the challenge was to modernise systems at Mencap and the second was to digitise how the workforce uses IT. This involved building apps relevant to them and connecting them up to systems.

Read more from the original source:

Royal Bank of Canada gives Mencap a leg-up in automating processes - ComputerWeekly.com

A look at the shareholders of Tedea Technological Development and Automation Ltd. (TLV:TEDE) can tell us which group is most powerful. Generally speaking, as a company grows, institutions will increase their ownership. Conversely, insiders often decrease their ownership over time. I generally like to see some degree of insider ownership, even if only a little. As Nassim Nicholas Taleb said, Dont tell me what you think, tell me what you have in your portfolio.

Tedea Technological Development and Automation is not a large company by global standards. It has a market capitalization of 78m, which means it wouldnt have the attention of many institutional investors. In the chart below, we can see that institutional investors have bought into the company. Lets delve deeper into each type of owner, to discover more about Tedea Technological Development and Automation.

Check out our latest analysis for Tedea Technological Development and Automation

Many institutions measure their performance against an index that approximates the local market. So they usually pay more attention to companies that are included in major indices.

We can see that Tedea Technological Development and Automation does have institutional investors; and they hold 11% of the stock. This suggests some credibility amongst professional investors. But we cant rely on that fact alone, since institutions make bad investments sometimes, just like everyone does. If multiple institutions change their view on a stock at the same time, you could see the share price drop fast. Its therefore worth looking at Tedea Technological Development and Automations earnings history, below. Of course, the future is what really matters.

Tedea Technological Development and Automation is not owned by hedge funds. Looking at our data, we can see that the largest shareholder is F.G.R.R. Holdings Ltd with 17% of shares outstanding. The second largest shareholder with 15%, is Mordechai Gorfung, followed by Yelin Lapidot Provident Funds Management Ltd., with an ownership of 9.6%.

Additionally, we found that 52% of the shares are owned by the top 5 shareholders. In other words, these shareholders have a meaningful say in the decisions of the company.

While studying institutional ownership for a company can add value to your research, it is also a good practice to research analyst recommendations to get a deeper understand of a stocks expected performance. Our information suggests that there isnt any analyst coverage of the stock, so it is probably little known.

The definition of an insider can differ slightly between different countries, but members of the board of directors always count. Company management run the business, but the CEO will answer to the board, even if he or she is a member of it.

Insider ownership is positive when it signals leadership are thinking like the true owners of the company. However, high insider ownership can also give immense power to a small group within the company. This can be negative in some circumstances.

It seems insiders own a significant proportion of Tedea Technological Development and Automation Ltd.. Insiders have a 27m stake in this 78m business. I would say this shows alignment with shareholders, but it is worth noting that the company is still quite small; some insiders may have founded the business. You can click here to see if those insiders have been buying or selling.

The general public, with a 33% stake in the company, will not easily be ignored. This size of ownership, while considerable, may not be enough to change company policy if the decision is not in sync with other large shareholders.

It seems that Private Companies own 21%, of the TEDE stock. It might be worth looking deeper into this. If related parties, such as insiders, have an interest in one of these private companies, that should be disclosed in the annual report. Private companies may also have a strategic interest in the company.

While it is well worth considering the different groups that own a company, there are other factors that are even more important. To that end, you should learn about the 6 warning signs weve spotted with Tedea Technological Development and Automation (including 2 which is dont sit too well with us) .

Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies.

NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures.

If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned.

We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Thank you for reading.

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What Kind Of Shareholders Own Tedea Technological Development and Automation Ltd. (TLV:TEDE)? - Simply Wall St