Monthly Archives: February 2020

The global industrial wireless automation market is poised to grow by USD 2.03 billion during 2020-2024, progressing at a CAGR of over 7% during the forecast period. Request free sample pages

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Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Industrial Wireless Automation Market2020-2024 (Graphic: Business Wire)

Read the 120-page report with TOC on "Industrial Wireless Automation Market Analysis Report by Solution (Field instrument and Communication network), End-user (Process industry and Discrete industry), Geographic segmentation (North America, APAC, Europe, South America, and MEA), and the Segment Forecasts, 2020-2024".

https://www.technavio.com/report/industrial-wireless-automation-market-industry-analysis

The market is driven by the growing adoption of high-speed communication network solutions for fast data transfer in the industrial sector. In addition, the increasing focus on predictive maintenance is anticipated to boost the growth of the industrial wireless automation market.

The evolution phase of communication protocols has led to an increase in bandwidth and advancements in related devices such as connectors and cables. Some of the major wireless communication network solutions used to transfer data include wireless highway addressable remote transducer (HART) protocol, ISA100.11a, WLAN, RFID, and Bluetooth. These wireless solutions are gaining prominence because they offer varied advantages. For instance, an industrial wireless automation solution such as Wireless HART not only supports energy management, process monitoring, regulatory compliance, and environmental monitoring but also ensures data protection. Thus, the growing adoption of high-speed communication network solutions for fast data transfer in the industrial sector is expected to drive market growth during the forecast period.

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Major Five Industrial Wireless Automation Market Companies:

ABB Ltd.

ABB Ltd. is headquartered in Ireland and operates the business under various segments such as Electrification Products, Robotics and Motion, and Industrial Automation. The company offers Industrial wireless automation solutions.

Cisco Systems Inc.

Cisco Systems Inc. offers products through the following business units: Product and Service. The company offers Cisco Connected Factory Wireless, which enables plantwide communications between machines, databases, and people on the plant floor.

Emerson Electric Co.

Emerson Electric Co. operates under various business segments, namely Automation Solutions, Climate Technologies, and Tools & Home Products. The company offers Wireless Network, Wireless Analytics, Wireless Power, and Others.

General Electric Co.

General Electric Co. offers products through the following business segments: Power, Renewable Energy, Aviation, Oil & Gas, Healthcare, and Others. The company offers industrial wireless automation solutions that include wireless radios for unlicensed and licensed narrowband communication, industrial 2G, 3G, and 4G LTE cellular routers and gateways.

Honeywell International Inc.

Honeywell International Inc. offers products through the following business segments: Aerospace, Honeywell Building Technologies, Performance Materials and Technologies, and Safety and Productivity Solutions. The company offers industrial wireless automation solutions called OneWireless Solutions.

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Industrial Wireless Automation Market Solution Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion, 2020-2024)

Field instrument

Communication network

Industrial Wireless Automation Market End-user Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion, 2020-2024)

Process industry

Discrete industry

Industrial Wireless Automation Market Geographic Outlook (Revenue, USD Billion, 2020-2024)

North America

APAC

Europe

South America

MEA

Technavios sample reports are free of charge and contain multiple sections of the report, such as the market size and forecast, drivers, challenges, trends, and more. Request a free sample report

Related Reports on Industrials Include:

Distribution Automation Solutions Market Global Distribution Automation Solutions Market by solution (field devices, communication systems, and software and services), deployment (system-level and customer-level), and geography (APAC, Europe, MEA, North America, and South America).

Industrial Automation Services Market Global Industrial Automation Services Market by geography (APAC, Europe, MEA, North America, and South America), service (PE, M&S, OS, and consulting), and end-users (process industries and discrete industries).

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Global Industrial Wireless Automation Market 2020-2024 | Evolving Opportunities with ABB Ltd. and Cisco Systems Inc. | Technavio - Yahoo Finance

Artificial intelligence (AI) and automation are terms that are frequently and incorrectly used interchangeably. Automation is a system of operating or controlling a process to accomplish tasks with little or no need for human intervention. AI is a horizontal technology that learns and mimics human intelligence over time by analyzing patterns in data. Sometimes the rules that drive automation are preprogrammed, and other times those rules are deduced by AI.

This muddying of the waters can have the negative effect of deterring many small and medium businesses from implementing automation (the importance of which I discussed in my previous article) because they believe their operations arent quite ready for this level of technology. They may be right, but only partially. While they may not be ready for AI, there are few businesses that would not benefit from some type of automation.

In my experience, the two most common types of automation found in enterprise IT environments are robotic process automation (RPA) and workload automation (WLA). RPA is software programmed to do basic tasks that mimic human users across applications. It is installed on the desktop and is operated directly by business users. WLA is software used to design, schedule, monitor and manage scripts and executables across the enterprise. It is installed on a companys servers and largely operated by IT users.

They are complementary solutions with distinctly different use cases, which means that depending on the need, many organizations might benefit from both. At their core, RPA and WLA enable businesses to focus on highest-value work, so if you are considering automation as part of your organizations digital transformation, there are several important factors to consider.

Identify exactly what headaches automation will solve for you.

Is your organization inundated with a large quantity of data that is time-intensive to organize and input? Is it eating up man-hours that could be better allocated elsewhere? If you answered yes, and there is no way to get this data programmatically, then RPA might be the appropriate remedy to your data-deluge-induced headache because data entry is what it does best. In addition to mimicking user inputs into the application user interface, RPA can also automatically download files from websites and autoformat documents.

Perhaps your organizations needs are slightly more complicated, and in addition to being inundated by data that requires filing, there are dozens, or maybe even hundreds, of processes that must be accomplished each day, often simultaneously, in order to simply function. Examples of such tasks include data processing, file transfers, service level agreement (SLA) monitoring, complex reporting, business day closing/opening process and many more. If your needs fall somewhere in this realm, WLA may be the ideal choice, potentially in addition to RPA.

Evaluate the risks.

Every process in place resists change and makes further adaptations challenging. But not all resist changes equally. Consider:

1. Manual processes resist change because people dont like to change. And the actual process being followed can be difficult to even know because the knowledge is spread among many individuals, often with no one person knowing the whole process. However, small changes tend to be adapted to easily.

2. RPA can automate the repetitive tasks of some of those people. But the specifics of what is being done continue to be hidden from the owner of the whole process. And worse than in the manual case, the RPA may fail when a small change is introduced to a website or screen that the RPA interacts with (e.g., the addition of a confirmation pop-up). Conversely, people can often easily adapt to these types of changes and recognize what needs to be done differently to keep the process working.

3. WLA resists change simply because it takes time and energy to redo steps of automation. However, in the case of WLA, the automation itself is self-documented such that you have a complete road map of your process. This makes adapting to change understandable and the timeline for doing so predictable much more so than processes run by people or robots.

I believe this distinction in risks makes WLA the compelling choice whenever possible, with RPA used for those steps that simply resist programmatic automation. When done this way, the WLA process documentation helps keep track of the RPA in use and minimizes the risk of using RPA.

Consider your budget.

Because installation and implementation are quick and easy, RPA is typically the least expensive upfront, especially if your needs are simple and you have a limited number of users. However, you will find that as your workforce and needs grow, so can the cost of RPA this in addition to the risks discussed above.

Conversely, WLA typically has a higher upfront cost due to the amount of work required to install and implement it. However, depending on the use case, WLA can end up being the least expensive option in the long run, due to its ease of scale and maintainability as your business evolves.

At the end of the day, its important to remember that automation isnt synonymous with artificial intelligence. Just because your business may not be ready for AI (and all of the expenses and intricacies that come with it), doesnt mean it isnt ready for RPA, WLA or maybe even both.

Each step you take toward automation preps more of your business to benefit from AI in the future. And by taking a proactive approach to automation, not only do you move your business forward; you can help keep it from sliding further into the traps of unknown and hidden processes.

Link:

How To Choose Automation That's Best For Your Business - Forbes

In 2015, senior software engineer Benjamin Willenbring was excited when his employer, Autodesk, introduced automated software testing. That excitement didn't last long. The small automation team didn't communicate much with his division. And when the tests reached production, they weren't what anyone hoped for.

"My teammates were talking about tests failing non-deterministically, and not really having a lot of confidence in the test," Willenbring says. He found that "to get to actually run the test was very, very difficult. It wasn't documented. You had to talk to someone. And there were an enormous amount of files and I didn't really understand why."

Automation was supposed to make Willenbring's work easier. Instead, the problems it created came to dominate much of his energy for the next several years.

Willenbrings experience isnt uncommon. And with automation rapidly spreading through IT, cautionary tales provide valuable lessons.

From the automated workflows of DevOps to robotic process automation (RPA), automated processes aim to reduce scut work and free skilled employees for higher-level tasks. But flawed premises or botched rollouts can turn the dream of automation into a nightmare. We spoke to several IT pros about automation horror stories they've heard about or endured, and distilled out six commandments to help your automation initiatives avoid such fates.

Originally posted here:

6 tips to avoid automation disaster - CIO

Ready Robotics cofounders Kel Guerin (left) and Ben Gibbs

Ben Gibbs was working in Johns Hopkins Universitys office for licensing and commercialization of intellectual property when he teamed up with Ph.D. robotics researcher Kel Guerin on the technology that became Ready Robotics in 2016. Their idea: Software that could power industrial robots, with an easy-to-use dashboard, enabling even small- and mid-size manufacturers to get the productivity benefit of robotic arms.

Today, the Columbus, Ohio-based company said that it had raised $23 million, led by Canaan, to expand its robotic O/S. The startup counts major manufacturers like Stanley Black & Decker and Smith+Nephew as customers, as well as smaller shops that would not otherwise be able to automate. The new funding brings Ready Robotics total investment to $42 million at a valuation that Forbes estimates at $70 million, up from $32.5 million after its last round, according to venture-capital database PitchBook.

Factories are hungry for robotic automation, but there are only 32,000 robotics engineers employed in U.S. manufacturing today and there are not enough systems integrators, Gibbs, the companys 37-year-old CEO, told Forbes. Where we are at with robotic automation today is like making you write 10,000 lines of code before you can write an article in Word. These bottlenecks are a major problem for factories that are desperate to enable automation to remain competitive.

Readys operating system, called Forge O/S, allows workers without any robotics background or coding experience to easily program the robots their plant uses. Forge O/S can plug and play with the variety of robot manufacturers. That allows plants that have a mix of, say, Kuka and Universal Robots, for different jobs to operate them through one dashboard. Forge O/S is the first operating system that allows you to operate any robot from any brand, and it does that by fixing all the complex back-end work, says Guerin, 35. The system starts at a price around $10,000 a year, and goes up from there depending on complexity and the number of robots and factories integrated.

The entire market for robots as a service, including affiliated software, is less than $1 billion out of a total robotics market around $50 billion, according to ABI Research analyst Rian Whitton. But by 2030, he figures, it could grow to more than 30% of a $521 billion market. Its quite a nascent space, he says. The hardware manufacturers like Kuka and Fanuc have their own control platforms so they dont have interoperability. What Ready Robotics is trying to do is create a common platform so it doesnt matter what robots you are using, and anyone can use the platform not just an engineer from CalTech.

The idea for Ready Robotics grew out of Guerins Ph.D. research. I was preoccupied with the idea of usability, he says. Before he finished school, he approached Johns Hopkins tech transfer office, where he met Gibbs. The two decided to team up to create their own company. I was itching to get back out into the startup world, says Gibbs, who had previously founded a company that licensed technology developed by the U.S. Navy. As is common in university spinouts, Johns Hopkins owns a small stake in the business.

Gibbs and Guerin moved operations from Baltimore to Ohio after an investment by Drive Capital, a venture firm based in Columbus thats managed by former partners of Sequoia Capital, in 2018. Sixty percent of the factories in the United States are located in the Midwest, and they buy the vast majority of the robot arms, Gibbs says.

Later that year, Ready began speaking with tools giant Stanley Black & Decker, which has built a team to scour for high-tech startups and innovations to improve operations at its 122 factories worldwide. Sudhi Bangalore, Stanley Black & Deckers vice president of Industry 4.0, says that when he began looking at ways to scale cobots, or collaborative robots, he discovered that Ready Robotics was already doing a small project with one of the companys Oregon factories. We fast-tracked the paperwork to see how they could engage with us on a few sites, Bangalore says.

In mid-December, Bangalore gave Ready the okay to launch in its Ohio factory, which makes fastening systems, telling the startup it hoped to do so in a tight timetable of four weeks, including the Christmas holidays. I was quite skeptical about how they would pull everything together, Bangalore says. Thats where they proved me wrong. When the launch proved more difficult than expected due to the plants aging infrastructure, he says, Kel came over and started designing things.

Since then, Bangalore says, Stanley Black & Decker has expanded its partnership with Ready Robotics to other factories, including a power-tools plant in Greenfield, Indiana, and is considering rolling out further among its 60-or-so U.S. factories. But big companies like Stanley test products all the time, and as the emerging robots-as-a-service field heats up, a key question for that expansion will be whether Ready can scale up at a lower cost. We pay a premium for this interface they are building, Bangalore says. It looks like the industry is catching on. So how can they evolve their value proposition?

Gibbs and Guerin believe that the emergence of inexpensive robotics and the software with which to operate them would enable automation in factories where it previously had been too costly. A McKinsey studyfound that 88% of manufacturers and other companies in heavy industry have either increased their spending on robotic automation or plan to do so. Yet getting benefit out of spending on automation has not been easy: The same McKinsey study found that only 4% of those manufacturers showed significant bottom-line improvements.

There have been all these investments in computer vision and machine learning, yet you are not seeing it live up to the hype in the industrial setting out of a few use cases, says Canaans Rayfe Gaspar-Asaoka, who led the investment in Ready. What we learned is that the software programmability of the robots is just broken.

For Canaan, the deal follows an earlier investment in retail robotics firm Berkshire Grey, which raised a whopping $263 million from investors that include SoftBank and Khosla Ventures in January.

Other investors in the Ready Robotics deal include RRE Ventures, Eniac Ventures and Drive Capital.

Read this article:

As Factories Struggle With How To Automate, Ready Robotics, Spun Out Of Johns Hopkins, Raises $23 Million For Robotic O/S - Forbes

Walk into a restaurant and order from a touchscreen. Call customer service and speak to a software program that sounds and answers questions like a human. Order an Uber and a self-driving car picks you up.

This is automation: the replacement of human workers with robots, artificial intelligence (AI) and other technologies. A 2013 OxfordUniversity studyconcluded automation threatens 47% of jobs in the United States. According to a2017 reportby McKinsey and Co., 30% of U.S. workers may be displaced by 2030, forced to learn new skills to make a living.

It is not only blue-collar jobs atrisk, but professions in medicine, law, accounting, finance, journalism and more.

Why should this matter to Jews? Because automation threatens to devastate communities across the U.S. and beyond, and we will not be immune. We must wake up to this reality and start preparing for it now. Automation could make peoples lives better in many ways. The coming technological revolution promises to deliver cheaper and higher-quality products, as well as safer and faster transportation, better health care and more. However, the other side of the coin is that many of todays most common jobs will disappear.

Retail currently is among the largest sources of employment in the U.S., with nearly16 millionpeople working in various sectors. Yet, we are in the midst of whatBusiness Insidercasuallyrefers to as the retail apocalypse. More than 9,300 stores closed in 2019, and some analysts predict this may climb to 12,000 in 2020. The list of chains expected to shut down hundreds of locations this year is staggering. It includes major brands such as Walgreens, the Gap and Forever 21.

The retail apocalypse is driven largely byonline sales, with giants such as Amazon, Target and Walmart reaping the benefits. E-commerce does create new jobs, butit concentratesthem in just a few parts of the country while leaving much of the rest behind. Amazon is striving toeliminatemany of those new jobs in the years to come by replacing the people operating its shipping warehouses with robots.

Some may point to todays low unemployment figures and conclude all these concerns are overblown. That would be a mistake.

Food service is ground zero for automation, as well. In 2018, a group of engineers from MIT openedSpyce, a restaurant that replaces humans with robot line cooks. Last year, SamsungdebutedBot Chef, a device featuring two robot arms that make entire meals, minus a few finishing touches. Imagine ordering from aself-service kioskor a voice-activated drive-through and receiving a meal robots prepared. McDonalds isworking aggressivelyto make this happen and others surely will follow. How many of the13 millionrestaurant industry jobs will remain after all is said and done?

Should you decide to order takeout in the future, the automated chef that prepared your meal may hand it off to afood delivery robot. This is the tip of the iceberg, as Google, General Motors, Tesla and other major corporations are in intense competitionto put reliable self-driving vehicles on the road. The timeline is not entirely clear yet, but what is certain is that when one of these companies finally breaks through, it will put millions of people, from Uber drivers to truck drivers, out of work.

White-collar jobs are not safe, either. In his bookThe War on Normal People, entrepreneur, nonprofit leader and former presidential candidate Andrew Yangwrites, Some of the jobs requiring the most education are actually among the most likely to become obsolete. On a Harvard Business School podcast about the future of white-collar work, professor Richard Baldwincautionsstudents not to acquire lots and lots of skills in something that AI is going to automate very soon the classic being radiologists and many types of medical diagnosis or many types of legal reasoning where you have to read lots of paper and digest it.

The displacement of workers because of technological progress is not a new phenomenon.During the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century, cotton mills made traditional weaving obsolete. Automobiles put drivers of horse-drawn carriages out of jobs. Tractors and other farming innovationsreshapedour entire economy, as agricultural workers dropped from one third to just 2% of the U.S. labor force from 1910 to 2010.

These changes led to massive economic growthand improvements in our collective standard of living, but it was far from a smooth transition. As people shifted from farming and crafts to industrial labor, there wereviolent protests,with numerous deaths and damages that would cost billions today. The rise of communism inspired revolutions that ultimately led to the oppression and murder of millions of people. New forms of anti-Semitism arose, as Jews were blamed for the evils of both capitalism and communism. Countries that remained democratic had to enact major social reforms, such aslimitingthe work week to 40 hours.

Industrial societies ultimately overcame this instability because new technologies created new jobs and people learned the skills necessary to do those jobs. Oxford researchers Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osbornewrite,The story of the twentieth century has been the race between education and technology. . The reason why human labour has prevailed relates to its ability to adopt and acquire new skills by means of education.

A 2013 OxfordUniversity studyconcluded automation threatens 47% of jobs in the United States. According to a2017 reportby McKinsey and Co., 30% of U.S. workers may be displaced by 2030, forced to learn new skills to make a living.

So why should we be deeply concerned this time around?

For centuries, technology eliminated jobs because it performed certain physical labor better than people.The crucial difference in the 21st century is that technology increasingly will outperform the human brain, as well. Without physical or cognitive advantages over robots and AI, what will happen to workers?

In his bookHomo Deus, renowned Israeli scholar Yuval Harari writes, In the twenty-first century, we might witness the creation of a massive new unworking class. He argues technology likely would help this unworking class survive, but it is unclear what people would do all day. One possibility is drugs and computer games, which would provide them with far more excitement and emotional engagement than the drab reality outside.

Anxiety about this issue is beginning to seep into popular culture. Anepisodeof the Netflix showBlack Mirrordepicts a future in which people live in massive warehouses, surrounded by interactive screens. They spend their workday peddling bicycles to create the electricity that powers their mostly digital existences. If they earn enough credits, they can enter an American Idol-style talent show. The few who win get to be entertainers, appearing on screen for the bicycle-peddling masses.

These scenarios might be too optimistic. According to Harari, automation may lead to wealth and power [becoming] concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite that owns the all-powerful algorithms, creating unprecedented social and political inequality.

Many Jews would struggle to cope with this reality, just like every other community. But we must also consider that such socioeconomic misery often has led to spikes in various forms of hatred, including anti-Semitism.

Jews have been a frequent target in times of turmoil.

In 1347, a disease known as the Black Death appeared in Europe and wiped out an estimated 25 million people in four years. The plague was particularly devastating because it came during a decadeslong period of economic collapse and starvation. Rumors immediately spread that Jews were responsible and, by late 1348, they were being slaughtered wholesale, particularly in Switzerland and the Rhineland. Some historians believe this anti-Semitism was, not just paranoid but economic. Many Jews were moneylenders; many Christians owed them money. The pogroms cancelled the debts.

For centuries, technology eliminated jobs because it performed certain physical labor better than people.The crucial difference in the 21st century is that technology increasingly will outperform the human brain, as well. Without physical or cognitive advantages over robots and AI, what will happen to workers?

Nazi Germany is the most famous case. After World War I, Germany was in disarray, facing a series of economic crises that culminated in the Great Depression of 1929. Banks failed and unemployment skyrocketed, creating an angry, frightened, and financially struggling populace open to more extreme political systems, including fascism and communism. This helped create an environment where Hitler had an audience for his antisemitic and anticommunist rhetoric that depicted Jews as causing the Depression.

What will happen in a scenario of massive unemployment and economic pain caused by automation? If Hararis fears come true, it is not hard to imagine Jewish tech executives being demonized and held up as proof that Jews are to blame for the ills of the 21st century.

Some may point to todays low unemployment figures and conclude all these concerns are overblown. That would be a mistake.

Asmanyacross thepolitical spectrumhave pointed out, headline unemployment numbers aremisleading. These statisticsdo not reflectthe number of people who want to work full-time but find only part-time positions. They do not indicate how many college graduates are doing jobs thatdont require a degree, nor do they account for the fact the labor force participation rate in the U.S. hasdecreased significantlysince 2000.

Others downplay the threat of automation by arguing that new types of jobs will appear, and workers will adapt to fill those openings.The first part of that equation is true; in the future, there will be many jobs we cant imagine today. But what skills will those new jobs require? Will someone working in retail easily transition into a profession that doesnt exist yet?

The evidence indicates this is wishful thinking. Studies show government-sponsored job-retraining programs have beenfailingfor decades. Meanwhile,huge numbersof manufacturing workers who have been displaced by automation and globalization remain unemployed, relying on government benefits to survive.

The lasting human costs of these job losses are evident across the U.S.Researchers at Youngstown State University studied Youngstown, Ohio, which suffered massive unemployment after steel factories shut down in the 1980s, along with other cities that faced similar challenges in recent years. Theyfoundthat deindustrialization undermines the social fabric of communities.

Beyond unemployment, consequences include the loss of homes and healthcare; reductions in the tax base, which in turn lead to cuts in necessary public services like police and fire protection; increases in crime suicide, drug and alcohol abuse, family violence and depression and loss of faith in institutions. These disturbing trends are reflected nationally.American life expectancy isdroppinglargely because of drug overdoses, suicides, alcohol-related illnesses, and obesity. Public trust in many of our most important institutions has fallen tohistoric lows.

This may be a mere preview of what will happen across the country as automation spreads through nearly every major industry. It is up to all of us to chart a different course.

American society must begin debating, preparing and implementing solutions now, and the first step is raising awareness about the challenges we face. Many people simply have not been paying attention, myself included. I became concerned only after reading Homo Deus. Journalists are not pursuing this story hard enough to make an impact. Few political leaders even talk about the threat of automation, let alone suggest ways to address it.

We will miss out on many creative solutions from businesses, nonprofits, academic institutions and individuals unless we generate massive popular awareness and demand.

Thankfully, this is beginning to change. Entrepreneur and nonprofit founder Andrew Yang ran for president in 2020 with the goal ofeducating and inspiringAmericans to confront the challenges of the 21st century. Although he recently suspended his campaign, he succeeded inbuilding a movementwith more than 400,000 donors and millions of supportersacross the political spectrum. Yang will soonannouncehow heplansto build on this foundation.

Business and nonprofit leaders also are doing crucial work to raise awareness.WorkingNation, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit,was founded in 2016by venture capitalist Art Bilger. Its mission is to expose hard truths about the looming unemployment crisis and bring the country together to create and amplify solutions for a changing economy. The organization reaches an audience of millions, with awealthofeducational resourcesabout thefuture of work. WorkingNation also highlightscompanies,elected officials,nonprofits andacademic leaders helping people learn the skills they need for the jobs of the 21st century.

According toBilger, massive structural unemployment is everyones problem. . This major challenge requires a widespread movement toward creating a workforce that is resilient, able to navigate the changing workplace and adapt. His vision is for employers, government leaders, nonprofits, educational institutions and others to cooperate on a local level to make this happen.

There is no question massive improvements in education and retraining will be essential moving forward. According toHarari, Much of what kids learn today will likely be irrelevant by 2050. At present, too many schools focus on cramming information. . Instead, people need the ability to make sense of information, to tell the difference between what is important and what is unimportant, and above all, to combine many bits of information into a broader picture of the world. He argues we will have to constantly reinvent ourselves to stay relevant, and that building resilience and adaptability is more important than learning specific skills.

WorkingNations videoSlope of the Curve is a great educational tool with which to start.

This leads to another fundamental challenge: As technology surpasses the ability of humans to perform increasingly complex tasks, can we rely on education alone?

Some believethe threat of automation requires more drastic solutions. Andy Stern, who once led the largest labor union in the U.S., has become aprominent advocatefor a universal basic income (UBI). Many prominent technologists, includingElon MuskandMark Zuckerberg, have come out in support of UBI, as well.Yangseducationproposalsincludemajorinvestmentin technical and vocationaltraining because he believes those jobs will be more difficult to replace with technology. But the core of his presidential campaign was theFreedom Dividend, a UBI proposal calling for every U.S. citizen older than 18 to receive $1,000 per month. He argues this would stimulate local economies, while helping communities cope with and adapt to the challenges of the 21st century.

We can and should vigorously debate about how to best prepare ourselves for technology displacing millions of workers.Is it better to focus all our efforts on improving our education system and retraining programs? Or do we need more dramatic solutions, like UBI? Are there other ideas we should consider? What about a combination of all of the above?

Our local, state and national governments will not focus on how to address automation unless we, the people, pressure them to do so.

We no longer have the luxury of ignoring these questions, but that is largely what political leaders on both sides of the aisle are doing. While Yangs candidacy made a significant impact, automation is not one of the core issues being discussed in the 2020 elections.

This is not a status quo any of us should accept.

Our local, state and national governments will not focus on how to address automation unless we, the people, pressure them to do so. You can start bycontactingyour elected officials and asking them how they will tackle this challenge. We should expect every candidate for public office to have a detailed plan and articulate why it represents the best approach.

Similarly, we will miss out on many creative solutions from businesses, nonprofits, academic institutions and individuals unless we generate massive popular awareness and demand. We can do this by making the future of work a central topic of conversation at our dinner tables, in our schools and communities, on social media and beyond. WorkingNations videoSlope of the Curve is a great educational tool with which to start.

Will we stumble toward a bleak dystopia defined by inequality, divisions and hate, or will we put our differences aside and fight together for a future that works for all of us? This is the defining political question of our time, and we are running out of time to answer it.

Max Samarov is executive director of research and strategy at StandWithUs. This story represents his personal views.

Read the original here:

Wake Up and Smell the Automation: Are We Ready to Lose Jobs to Robots? - Jewish Journal

Over the last few decades, the progression of industrial robotic technologies has continued to advance at a rapid rateeven long after the robot boom of the 1980s in the automotive industry. Now, many robotic industry players view autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) as the next big movement in industry to address labor shortages, the growing demand for customized order fulfillment, and increasingly dynamic production environments that are pushing manufacturers to employ ever-leaner, more agile technologies.

Most robot industry insiders see AMRs as a replacement for the lengthy conveyor belt lines and automated guided vehicles (AGVs) used to automate material handling tasks in the past. AMRs are seen as a good replacement for AGVs because they do not require permanent wire strips or magnetic tracks along the floor to guide their path. Instead, AMRs navigate through the use of light detection and ranging (LIDAR) technology, and on-board intelligence and collision-detection safety systems that allow for the real-time selection of the most appropriate route to any given destination at a particular moment in time.

Fetch Roboticss CartConnect AMR can pick up and drop off carts from anywhere within a facility. Source: Fetch Robotics

The benefits of AMRs arent difficult to imagine. For one, the lack of infrastructure required to deploy AMRs reduces upfront costs, allowing for a much faster return on investment. Beyond that, the flexibility of being off a fixed track can maximize the use of space in a large plant, and help meet the changing needs of an increasingly adaptive manufacturing landscape.

Manufacturing has really changed, and as the need for adaptive manufacturing has become higher and higher, real estate has become more and more expensive, so plant floor space is now a valuable commodity, says Ed Mullen, vice president of salesAmerica for Mobile Industrial Robots (MiR). Being able to shrink everything down and make changes on the fly is really going to start paying dividends, and AMRs allow for that.

Melonee Wise, CEO of Fetch Robotics, a company that offers Robots-as-a-Service (RaaS), concurred, noting that, aside from the cost savings AMRs entail, the changing demands of industry itself will increasingly require them.

If you look at the environments that theyve [AMRs] been deployed in for manufacturing, especially in the realm of consumer electronics, the flexibility is really key. They change their work cell configuration and their line plan delivery configuration sometimes every several months or even weeks, Wise said. Having the ability to completely change the routes that the [AMR] fleet is moving along quickly is going to be a big win.

inVias Picker robots are designed to move inventory safely from one point within a facility to another. Source: inVia Robotics

Spurring Broader Adoption

As clear as the benefits may be for AMRs, manufacturing remains a risk-averse industry. While adopting new technologies is required to maintain a competitive advantage, doing so too soon can lead to unexpected losses, says Matthew Rendall, CEO of Otto Motors. This is major reason why the proliferation of AMRs has proceeded slowly to date. However, Rendall and others feel that the market is finally beginning to shake-out its kinks, and a proverbial tipping point is just around the bend.

In particular, the shift toward multi-modal functionality has strengthened the value proposition of AMRs. Take for example Stablis HelMo robot, which features a robotic arm mounted on top of an autonomous mobile cart. In the past, an autonomous mobile cart may have offered tremendous time savings just by moving materials throughout a plant. But the picking, loading, and unloading tasks still had to be carried out by humans. With the addition of a robotic arm, HelMo represents an autonomous mobile asset with multiple uses, and thus a stronger case for investment.

What we see from time to time is that people have a hard time justifying the use of a robot for a single purpose, says Sebastien Schmitt, robotics division manager of Stabli North America. With more robotics coming into play, you no longer have the problem of getting parts loaded from the station to your cart or unloaded from your cart to your station, and AMRs have truly come into their own as a product.

MiR is also looking to capitalize on the prospect of a flexible AMR capable of performing various functions to help justify its upfront costs, but its approach differs from Stabli. Rather than offering a general-purpose robot like HelMo, MiR favors a modular approach, whereby their various AMR offerings act as blank slates that other pieces of hardware can be integrated with.

Were really targeting verticals in manufacturing because thats where our low-hanging fruit is, but were [also] opening up our product to many different industries, including hospitals, airports, and logistics. Thats why were starting to see an eco-system of third-party companies looking to build various accessories for the tops of our vehicles, Mullen says. So, instead of being a company that says: Here is a solution, make it work for your application; we say: Heres a tool, and lets develop the right solution for your application.

Perhaps the most compelling business model for the evolving AMR space is robotics-as-a-service (RaaS), which allows companies to contract third-party robots that can be rapidly deployed for a temporary period of time, while also attaining product expertise to assist those who may be unfamiliar with the technology. (See the November 2019 Automation World feature article Robots at Your Service: http://awgo.to/raas).

Fetch Robotics Wise, along with Lior Elazary, CEO and co-founder of inVia Robotics, another RaaS provider, both contend that the unique RaaS model, largely enabled by cloud computing, can ease the learning curve for companies poorly versed in robotics and provide a quicker, more discernible return on investment.

inVia, for its part, drives this point home by employing a billing model that charges per item moved, rather than per robot, an economic choice that places the onus on inVia to move products more efficiently, rather than merely deploying more robots.

In the past, if you look at some robotics companies, theyve sold a bunch of robots, which was great for them, but at some point their sales flat-lined because the customers didnt really know how to best utilize the robots, Elazary says. [Our model] gives them great cost certainty, as well as the reliability that if they need half a million units moved, we can support that.

Yet, according to Elazary, an even greater benefit offered by RaaS is that it opens up the AMR market to small- and medium-sized businesses by removing risk, reducing upfront capex costs, and allowing for rapid scalability.

If you look at Amazon, they had to pay the ultimate price. They actually bought an entire robotics companyKiva Systemsfor $700 million. Most of our customers, even at the highest enterprise level, cant afford to do that, he says. What were allowing them to do is basically have that throughput now and see almost immediate ROI without having to project so many years into the future.

Omrons LD-250 mobile robot has a 250kg payload capacity and is designed to work alongside people. Source: Omron

The Importance of Software

Elazary, Wise, Schmitt, and Mullen all contend that the most promising developments in the AMR space will be found in the domain of software, rather than hardware, with cloud computing, machine learning, and more sophisticated fleet management solutions all taking center-stage as the market heats up.

Wise suggests that cloud connectivity will be imperative to companies looking to get the most out of their AMRs due to the necessity of data collection, consolidation, and analysis to enable AMRs to navigate increasingly complex environments.

I think its important to realize that the warehouse is actually the wild west, whether its a manufacturing or distribution facility. There is a lot of complexity and difficulty there, and this is not a solved problem. If you look at the algorithms and the machine learning that we do today, its pretty sophisticated, she says. Thats really enabled by the cloud, and if youre not in the cloud, youre going to miss a lot of that opportunity.

To surmount the robotics skills gap, several companies, such as Omron, have designed AMR software that can create an internal map of an environment by being driven around with a joystick. According to Darrell Paul, market manager for robotics and motion at Omron, the process is no more difficult than playing a video game. Once an initial tour of a plant floor is complete, Omrons fleet management software can designate zones within the space where different rules are applied, such as speed limits, stopping at intersections, or only moving in one direction down certain corridors.

Elsewhere, startup companies such as California-based Formant are offering the promise of a general-purpose fleet management platform that can integrate many different types of AMRs into a single system.

The MiR100 from Mobile Industrial Robots moving equipment in a Ford facility. Source: Mobile Industrial Robots (MiR)

Labor Concerns andThe Reality of Automation

While the accelerating pace of development in the robotics space may excite engineers and technologists, some fear that the growing prevalence of automation could pave the way to the displacement of human workers by machines. In reality, many of the jobs that AMRs are performing are not being adequately addressed with human labor. In fact, according to Wise, one of Fetchs largest clientsa large automotive facilitytypically sees between 30-40 of its 160 workers absent from any given shift. As a result, robots are increasingly viewed as critical components of production uptime.

Moreover, as robots move into the workplace, humans in the facility will be able to focus on more fulfilling, value-added tasks.

Were working now in a small manufacturing community in Wisconsin, and we were very successful retraining everyone to work with our Ottos. The maintenance personnel and the electricians all used to work with PLCs and conveyors, and after going through our retraining program, theyve leveled up their career and are now one of the first groups in the region to be skilled in AMR maintenance, Rendall says. Thats a really marketable skill, and I think its going to do well for them in the foreseeable future.

For all the material progress thats been made in the past century, the sad truth of early industrialization is that it made man the slave of the machine, chained to immovable production lines and conveyors that trudged forward with a steady, unrelenting rhythm. Now, the emergence of AMRs and other advanced robotics is unshackling the labor force from the static production methods of the past and helping put people back at the helm of operations.

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Are Autonomous Mobile Robots at the Tipping Point? - Automation World

Less than 10% of MSPs offer compliance-as-a-service solutions. Kaseya Compliance Manager seeks to fill this gap.

Compliance is so hot right now, and Kaseya is all over it. The provider just announced a new comprehensive audit, assessment and analysis solution that allows users to automate compliance processes and documentation according to the National Institute of Standards and Technologys (NIST) Cyber Security Framework (CSF).

This capability within Kaseya Compliance Manager boosts MSPs and helps them better support small and midsize clients facing the increasingly nasty and growing number of cybersecurity threats by leveraging the best practices outlined in the NIST CSF.

According to Kaseyas 2019 MSP Benchmark Survey, 83% of MSPs are impacted by their end-customers compliance requirements, and one-half assist end customers in their compliance efforts on an ad-hoc basis; yet, theres a compliance expertise gap among MSPs, with less than one in 10 MSPs offering compliance-as-a-service solutions.

Kaseya Compliance Manager aims to solve this issue, empowering small and midsize companies to prepare for just about any existing or future data privacy law iteration, as NIST CSF makes up the foundation for a majority of these regulations. [For example, the federal COPRA bill (US would-be answer to the GDPR), the CCPA, and the NY SHIELD Act arguably the most comprehensive state data privacy regulation to date, effective March 2020).

Kaseyas Mike Puglia

Standards like GDPR, HIPAA and NIST CSF have a laundry list of requirements to demonstrate compliance, and oftentimes the complexity of these requirements reach beyond the expertise of IT administrators and MSPs, said Mike Puglia, chief strategy officer, Kaseya. Despite that fact, almost every MSP client is subject to at least one set of security or privacy rules, if not more. For most organizations, compliance with these rules is outside their skill set. This presents a huge opportunity for MSPs to step in and offer to manage the compliance process for their customers.

Puglia warns, however, to do so effectively, MSPs need a solution that not only helps them bridge the compliance expertise gap but also complements their multifunction capabilities so that they can capitalize on this next big managed service. This is where Kaseya Compliance Manager comes in.

Kaseya Compliance Manager is a purpose-built, role-based compliance process automation platform. The products workflow engine, automated discovery, management portal, and built-in compliance document generation and archiving hand MSPs the information they need to gather, process, analyze and validate customer compliance efforts with a number of regulations and laws.

We built Compliance Manager to be intuitive, said Puglia. Regulation-specific versions of Compliance Manager, for GDPR and HIPAA for example, delve into the specific requirements and nuances of those standards without requiring the technician to have a background in data privacy or medical records. Additionally, again keeping MSPs in mind, we offer live instructor-led training, one-on-one sessions and onboarding assistance to help them get their first deployment up and running, as well as provide free unlimited technical support.

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Automation: An Answer to the Compliance Kerfuffle - Channel Futures

Forresters 2020 Predictions Reportspeculates that by 2030, 80% of agency jobs will be transformed by automation, which will enhance the industry, not replace it. So, as we head into a new decade, how will technology re-invent the creative process, and how should agencies be prepared to work within the shifting model, while still maintaining the element of humanity?

As the landscape changes, agencies will produce more content, for targeted audiences, faster, and with fewer resources. Traditionally, the agency creative process has remained reasonably unchanged. While the industrys progression of automation and technology is often perceived as a threat, these platforms can also enhance creativity.

So, what will change, and how can agencies pivot towards what is fast becoming the new paradigm?

The media cycle will continue to accelerate, but attention spans will continue to diminish.

With more content pushed out on more channels and devices, the ability to reach a consumer is dwindling, as is the amount of time that he or she will spend consuming that content. The Internet has ruined our attention spans, making it harder to connect, and increasing the need to create impactful content.

The media landscape will continue to fragment

The future has more channels, devices, and platforms, all of which are competing for consumer attention. While opportunities are abundant, it can be a game of catchup when it comes to brand messaging, e.g. TikTok, a platform that sprang out of nowhere and now has everyone clambering to get on the bandwagon.

Big Data will transform the way we target and message consumers

With the rise of big data, the potential to facilitate personalized messaging in context is HUGE. Its an opportunity to reach people with hyper-relevant messaging. For example, the OOH space can now co-mingle a brands first-party data with mobile location data to deliver hyper-targeted messages to consumers. This means that brands need to have messaging tailored to consumer behavior, that is also location/scenario specific.

Moving forward, agencies will have to change the way they ideate and develop content. The old way of having an elite team of creatives meditating on a brand challenge, only to produce a winning idea days later, wont fit the new landscape.

Use the strength of numbers

Creativity takes time, its a universal fact. Its hard for small teams to consistently write original and impactful content. We dont know when and where inspiration is going to strike, but when youre in the business of capturing lightning in a bottle, it helps to have lightning rodsand lots of them, in all shapes and sizes, spread across the country. Changes in the creative process will lead to wider and more diverse access to minds agencies wouldnt otherwise be able to tap.Creatives should take themselves out of the weeds of content creation and assume the role of editors and curators: specialists who can spot the rough diamonds, quickly polish them, and get them out the door, rinse and repeat (at scale).

Use technology to save timeAre all ideas winners? NO. Will there always be some duds in there? OF COURSE. But, the future will show that technology has the ability to enhance the creative process, delivering more solid ideas and jumping off points that have yet to be considered or unearthed, within a smaller time frame.

Technology can help us hear what people are saying about our brand (social listening tools), surface-specific newsworthy items that are doing the rounds (social media, news), and give recommendations on what content we should produce based on how our previous content has performed (analytics).But, technology can only go so far, we will still always require bright, smart minds to generate ideas, riffs, hooks, and jumping-off points for content.

Embrace a shortened cycle

Even if you had all the time in the world, it never makes sense to personally respond to six or seven briefs for a cold prospect. Agency time is monopolized by RFPs and briefs, followed often by radio silence and ghosting. Technology has the ability to relieve a lot of this cycle, allowing in-house teams to spend time on the projects that are important while lowering burn out rates and not sacrificing client expectations.

As an industry, we need to step into these changes and work smarter, not harder. Let the masses, tech, and automation do the heavy lifting, while we set strategy and steer the course. Shepherding a brands message through the hurricane that is the modern media landscape is a daunting task, but with the right tools, modern agencies can both weather the storm and emerge triumphant with the winds of change at their backs.

Originally posted here:

The Intersection of Agency Life and Creativity in the Age of Automation - AlleyWatch

As businesses look to the future, they should turn their eyes toward intelligent automation as a key component of their technology infrastructure to significantly improve the efficiency and effectiveness of business. Confronted with challenges like managing an ever-increasing volume of data without hiring additional human workers, organizations that dont incorporate automation into their long-term strategies may fall behind. A company that has developed a digital workforce has the potential to not only fill the hiring gap and space left by retiring employees and business growth, but to also augment the skills of an existing workforce.

Working in the robotic process automation (RPA) industry myself, over the past several years, Ive seen plenty of fear around the possibility of artificial intelligence (AI) replacing human workers. I do expect some of that apprehension to continue into 2020. However, as business leaders and their employees learn how to work alongside digital co-workers, I believe they will recognize the strategic benefits of building a multiskilled, multitalented digital workforce to augment the human workforce.

Part of the allure of digital workers is the ability to rapidly add new capabilities. For example, you can have the same digital worker with visual skills read resumes in the morning for human resources (HR). They can have the machine learning capability to search and categorize contracts for the legal department at lunchtime. In the afternoon, they can help out in the call center performing as a chatbot. And, you will still have time remaining for the digital worker to perform other jobs.

The Need For Digital Workers In The Coming Years

With unemployment at a record low, there are fewer skilled workers for the newer jobs being developed. And many of the workers who are available are not interested in companies with heavy concentrations of old IT infrastructure and jobs requiring intensive manual, white-collar tasks. It will be important over the next several years for human workers to continue to advance their tech skills alongside their digital co-workers in order to take full advantage of the market.

Further, baby boomers are heading into retirement in large numbers. According to the Pew Research Center, The U.S. labor force is declining by about 5,900 boomers daily on average, and roughly 10,000 boomers turn 65 each day. This shift is likely to reshape the workforce, and many organizations are simply not equipped with a succession plan.

An organization that has a digital workforce in place has the potential to reskill its human workforce in a more efficient and effective way. With a workforce that is made up of both digital and human workers and utilizes other automation technologies, businesses can focus on succession planning and building the workforce of the future.

Integrating A Workforce With Digital Workers

Business leaders must first ensure that the human workforce is fully aware of the transformation taking place. Leaders must commit to helping them be a part of the transformation, participate as much as possible and teach their digital colleagues. Again, this is all about business outcomes and change, not technology.

Focus digital workers on the parts of a process that can free up their human teammates to work on the more rewarding, stimulating and gratifying parts of that process, when possible. Start by automating the proverbial low-hanging fruit. We all do these tasks to test, learn and gain muscle memory, but eventually, human workers will take on more end-to-end processes that touch external customers, regulators, etc. This is where the power of the digital-human workforce really shines.

Just like a human workforce, the digital workforce needs infrastructure and looking after. This is invaluable to grow some or all of the competency required internally. Understanding the needs and the capability of your digital workers is no different than understanding your human workforce. How much of that you entrust to someone else is up to you.

Over the next few years, well likely see every organization utilizing a digital workforce as an integral resource, not only for succession planning but also for their ability to process information, execute processes and mimic how humans work faster and with fewer errors. These digital workers will be integrated with existing teams and free up time for employees to focus on higher-value work and interact more with their customers.

The way I see it, intelligent automation and connected-RPA have the potential to transform businesses and will be staples for successful businesses in 2020 and beyond.

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Planning For The Future Of Robotic Process Automation - Forbes

Automation in the farming sector is playing an increasing role in improving the quality of both animal and farmers lives. Pascal Huger, a goat breeder in Thenay in the Loir-et-Cher region, talks to EURACTIV France about his choice to automate on his farm.

Huger has opted for maximal automation, a move that he says gives him more time to take better care of the animals.

Caring for a herd of 400 goats of the Saanen breed, Huger sells his milk to cheesemakers who produce cheese under the Protected Designation Origin (PDO) not far from his home. He wants to save time so he can look after his goats.

Robots may seem inhuman, but they actually give me more time for my goats, Huger said, highlighting that his priority is, and will always remain, the herd and its well-being.

An entrepreneurial approach

In order to guarantee optimum milk production, which meets the PDOs strict specifications, the quality of the goats feed is the farmers primary concern.

A good diet means good milk and hence a good cheese, according to the farmer.

His goats produce the milk used for Selles-sur-Cher, Valenay, Sainte-Maure, Pouligny-Saint-Pierre, as well as the renowned Crottin de Chavignol.

In 2002, he bought the farm from his boss as a former farmworker and now employs one worker of his own. Although only two of them manage this huge herd, the Saanen breed is not only good at producing milk but also has a calm temperament.

And now, thanks to automation, the most tedious tasks are left to the machines.

While the bales of hay, green fodder and grass are distributed by the farmer along with the barn gates, feed supplements are managed by a computer and distributed by a robot, which makes it possible to personalise the process.

While the goats are divided into separate pens according to whether they are pregnant, nursing or not, the rams are also kept separate.

The robot dispenses exactly the right amount of feed supplements for each pen, according to the needs of the goats. This means that the breeder no longer has to prepare the mixtures by hand and carry heavy buckets, as the robot takes care of the mixtures and distribution.

Over a dozen livestock stakeholders have been campaigning across metro stations in Brussels as well as online, in a bid to fight back against the narrative propagated by NGOs and environmentalists on animal farming. At stake is the very conception of modern animal farming practices in Europe.

Controls at all stages

Milking is also fully automated. Each goat is equipped with an electronic identification tag, which identifies the goat as soon as it enters its space on the rotary milking machine. Once the liners are installed on her udders, the milk is sent directly to the storage tank, and the milk checks are carried out automatically.

This avoids regular manual sampling that disturbs the animals and also allows a better yield.

Sensors in each pulsometer manage the milk flow and allow for the automatic removal of the liners when the flow slows down. Milk sensors record the production of each animal and an automatic feed dispenser adapts the ration to each goat according to its production.

All the information is accessible on a touch screen that signals the slightest anomaly during milking, allowing the farmer to intervene quickly at the first sign of trouble.

The data collected by the software allows thorough management of the herd, given that each goat is listed with its lactation number, the batch in which it is located, as well as its gestation and production history.

The data also includes information regarding the milks quality and the goats health, as well as a list of declarations and administrative procedures to fulfil when an animal gives birth or leaves for the slaughterhouse.

This information enables the farmer to decide the best time to rest a goat for its dry period (about two months) before putting it back into gestation, bearing in mind that the average lactation period is ten to 12 months.

A communication gap between citizens and farmers in the modern livestock sector is increasingly widening and the general sentiment is shifting from an overall good opinion of those who keep feeding the world toward a negative view on farmers role in todays society.

A farm that switches to energy-saving mode

Another particularity of Hugers operations is that he delivers his milk every day to a farmhouse cheese producer in the neighbouring village. To avoid cooling his milk too much, he adds some serum in the evening so that it can start the fermentation process.

The temperature is thus lowered to 12, instead of the 4 required for health reasons if the milk goes to the dairy.

Furthermore, its milk tank is equipped with a heat recuperator; the energy spent to cool the milk is recovered to heat the hot water, as well as for the insulation of the buildings which, together with ventilation, keeps the goats cooler inside in summer.

[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic and Gerardo Fortuna]

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How automation can work to support effiency in farming systems - EURACTIV