If you visit electronics factories in China today, you will see thousands of workers use their hands and small tools to assemble electronic devices such as TV, DVD players, MP3 Players, and mobile phones etc. Electronic factories are thriving with several million labor workers.
If you visit new and modernized electronic factories in Europe or the U.S. today, you will see hundreds of robots do the same work but much faster, and with better quality. These robots are equipped with video cameras, laser, sensors to guide them in their works and they work 24hours a day, and 365 days a year without any complain. This is not a futuristic scenario as it already happened.
Today a new wave of robots is replacing labor workers around the world, mostly in manufacturing area where labor skills are utilized. It is predicted that within ten years, factories which employ hundreds of thousands of low-skilled workers will cease to exist and be replaced by automated factories operate by robots. A company owner said: “With these robots, we can make any consumer device in the world at one-tenth of the cost and with higher quality. It means everything will be cheaper, more affordable for everyone and available to be purchased everywhere in the world.”
In these modern automated factories, the assembly line can runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and there are robots everywhere with few human workers. All of the heavy lifting, building, assembling and the precise detailed works are done by robots. Most human workers only monitor the assembly line, make sure the work is done properly, inspect the quality and make decision to shift products to customers. Today robots can store, retrieve, and pack products for shipment far more efficiently than people. Robot manufacturers owners say that robots are already more cost-effective than humans. For example, a manufacturing robot cost about $250,000 but it can replace two workers, each earning $50,000 a year. Instead of working 8 hours, robots work 24 hours so its productivity is much better. A typical robot can last 25 to 35 years so it is much cheaper to buy robot than hire people.
Many industry executives believe that robotics is the right solution and better business than using low skilled workers under stressful situation which often subjected to abuse. The growing usage of robots have created a debate among economists over how quickly manufacturing jobs will be lost. Several economists argued that we should not bring in technology “too fast” as it will devastate the current fragile global economy and put million of people out of work. But business owners argued that automation will give them more advantages over others and in this global competitive, control the market is the key business strategy. An electronic company owner said: “We cannot compete with low cost labor from developing countries. They can build the same thing at lower cost and capture the market. But if we use robots, we can compete with them in both quality and cost.”
A technology analyst explained: “There are many technology issues in robotics that will take years to solve. Robots cannot do everything as expected. They still need people to control them. We need people to program the robots and direct the robots on what to do. From the economic point of view, having automation and robots are not about losing jobs but a change in skills. We do not need people to do what robots can do but we need people to control robots so it means we need more technical people such as engineers and computer specialists. Of course, we do not need low skills labor workers anymore. We are living in an information age where technology impacts everything. If people do not have the right skills or willing to learn new skills, they will not have jobs. In this globalize world, every country is compete against each other for jobs and skilled workers. There are plenty of jobs available but most require college education.”
Beyond the technical challenges and the issue about job lost, the current automation trend of using robots means many manufacturing jobs that were outsourced few years ago are returning to the U.S and Europe and it could created a devastating effect in countries that are heavily dependent on outsourced manufacturing jobs.
Prof John Vu
Carnegie Mellon University
Original source: http://www.segvn.org/forum/mvnforum/viewthread_thread,1594
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