The luddites

Is it me or am I getting a concience in old age.

Over the last year or so, I have done a lot of projects that have been 'retro-fits come manual to automatic' alterations.

In each case, I have known from the outset that when it is finished, some employees will lose their jobs.

The worst being, 9 people redundant 3people X 3-8 hour shifts. This was a conveyor system where the 3 people loaded the product in to shrink-wrap ovens and sealers. I did a lovely queuing and handling system.

I can see the employers point of view as he saves 9 peoples wages.

But I have had a long run of this and more to come and it struck me that a lot of people no longer have there jobs because of me.

And when I say me, in a lot of cases I saw how their system was run (and had run for 30 years)and suggested it could be done automatically.

Maybe its my split allegences. On one hand I am a hero to the bosses and management (anyone who saves them money and improves production is a hero) but to the workers, I am becoming the grim reaper. And I see myself as a worker.

I do not sit in my office churning out code (ok, sometimes I do)
I am in that machine ripping out old and fitting new and then with all my notes by my side, programming there at the side of the machine.

True automation of machinery (before plc's became popular)is only about 'what' 30 40 years old at most when relays and timers were 1st used extensively.

These machines are still with us and are being updated and retro-fitted with more functions and automation AND job losses.

is it a mini industrial revolution and will the new luddites rise up again and smash the PLC's

And for those that dont know about luddites here is a nice site

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRluddites.htm

Look at it the other way Goody.

If you hadn't saved him all that money he'd probably go out of business eventually - losing work to companies who had modernised.

If you've helped him make a superbly efficiently run factory then his business will increase in time so he'll have to set on more staff, buy more raw materials, use more utilities and services, etc. And so the industrial revolution continues!

My work organised some training for us onsite by a process control expert. First lesson was benefits of improved control to the plant

1)Improve grade
2)Increase recovery
3)Use less reagents
4)Less labour

We dont talk about the last one.

Goody,

I have been accused of costing employees their job on several occasions. Not that I am anything of an electrician/engineer that the folks on here are, but yeah, now a job that may have taken 3 people/shift may only need one or two.

I do not like seeing anyone laid-off or retired and not replaced anymore than the next guy, but look at it the way I try to explain it to those that will listen.

If that job continues at it present cost (expense/part) then it may be sent somewhere that the profit is higher. Now, instead of one person losing their job, 3 people have. If one part is moved to another facility, then maybe it makes sense to move others that are related to it. Now more people have lost their job.

I do not know about the way things work in your neck-of-the-woods. But way to often, I see another person added to a job, instead of making the ones on the job, actually do their job.

So never look at it as if you are costing someone their job, you are helping insure the others of being able to keep theirs, and the smart employees will see that just like management has. Remember that management's job also relies on business staying in their facility.

I have been around several industries in my career.

I have seen first hand the manual to automation. The process improvement, the labor issues. The need to explain the reduction in manpower is an easy one for management, but not for the labor staff. A good training session with the staff is worth a lot - especially if it prevents a "slow down".

One side effect for large processes is the loss of talent and knowledge associated with the long running process. Sometimes the opererator or maintenance mechanic that is losing his job to automation may know little nuiances regarding a process that you may never know. The biggest issue that I have seen for a large process is that the operations staff has been reduced to levels that if the process were to have to be operated manually, there is not enough manpower or knowledge to do so.

Just a few things I have observed.

burnerman said:

Look at it the other way Goody.

If you hadn't saved him all that money he'd probably go out of business eventually - losing work to companies who had modernised.

If you've helped him make a superbly efficiently run factory then his business will increase in time so he'll have to set on more staff, buy more raw materials, use more utilities and services, etc. And so the industrial revolution continues!

Click to expand...

Couldn't agree more.

When we install new machinery to make operations more efficient and less labour intensive the operatives who are safest are the ones who show an interest and want to get involved with the new stuff.
The ones who complain that it's been done the same way for 30 years so why should they change now are usually the first to go.

In any business if you don't modernise you'll go under.

If your job REALLY consists of a position that can easily be replaced by relatively simple machines, it's NOT the guys fault who built the machine to replace you.....it's your own, for not improving your own skillset to help you attain a position that isn't so easily replaced by machines.......education.



Greg

Greg Dake said:

If your job REALLY consists of a position that can easily be replaced by relatively simple machines, it's NOT the guys fault who built the machine to replace you.....it's your own, for not improving your own skillset to help you attain a position that isn't so easily replaced by machines.......education.



Greg

Click to expand...

That was just about exactly what I was going to post, thanks Greg! We in the automation business are there because we sought to have one of those types of jobs that is hard to eliminate and I preach this to my students all the time. EDUCATION! May not ever help you a great deal(depends on the individual), but will never hurt you!

I personally haven't seen anyone lose their job because of a machine I installed or upgraded. Granted I usually work in union shops where workers are relocated to other areas of the plant. But the workforce is diminished by retirement or regular turnover and not hiring replacements.

I've thought of this often, Goody.

It is a delemna, but I take comfort in the fact that the overall benefits to society are beneficial. In the long run our more or less constant rise in living standards are the result of increased productivity. And increased productivity is a direct result of automation.

This was a hot topic back in the 70's. At that time, as today, the overwhelming conclusion is that in the long run automation creates more jobs than it takes. In the long term (and often in the short term) automation creates new industries and new jobs, as well as preserving competitive postions for the company in question. If garment manufacture was more automated, would we be buying sneakers from Taiwan and China? If labor content remains high, can Great Britain or the US compete with the third world? Do most Americans or Britons really want the jobs that involve brute force and dull repetitive tasks?

I'm not criticizing third world labor pools - those people have to buy baby food, too, and deserve an honest day's pay for an honest day's work. I just want to make sure my kids and grandkids have a place to work as well.

This brings us to the immediate impact on the specific workers replaced by automation. That is bad, and there is no way to sugar coat it. Unfortunately, there is no immediate cure. It is well and good to say they should have made better choices in their education, which is true, and to say that they are victims of inexorable Darwinian forces, which is also true. None of that puts toys under the Chritmas tree, though. One has to feel compassion, but I don't know what good that does either.

I don't know the answer. I do know that overall the work we do benefits society and helps more people than it hurts. The answer is not becoming a Luddite, but to provide opportunities for those able to grasp them. I don't know what a society can do for those that aren't able.

I used to think I was eliminating jobs. But overall, I found that there were usually more people working the machine in the long run. More material handlers, in some cases more maintanence people.

Many projects I have gotten to revisit whwn back at the facilities a couple of years later, and generally has always been the case. This would not hold true in all types of industry, I'm sure.

On the other hand, It's you or them.

regards.....kc

Back home we said when computers were coming that we may have lots of jobs lost, but look at the number of programmers, software and hardware people, technician etc. created. A whole lot of new industry.

alielectrical said:

Back home we said when computers were coming that we may have lots of jobs lost, but look at the number of programmers, software and hardware people, technician etc. created. A whole lot of new industry.

Click to expand...

And then along came India...

The bigger problem we face in the long run is NOT the uneducated labor pools of China and others, it is that they are becoming educated at a tremendous rate. Literacy is climbing in all the developing nations - it's a precursor, a population that cannot read cannot compete with us. The illiterate worker is not what I fear, it's his grandson with the Master's degree that keeps me up at night.

The nationalistic view that foreign diplomas are not worth as much as American or European diplomas is self-destructive. A false sense of security with simple racism at it's root will stab us in the back in twenty years.

Ultimately, we are in a transition period. Right now, we slough off the unskilled worker in favor of automation, but other countries are following our model, and catching up fast.

When they start to overtake us, the real cut-throat race begins. I don't envy my grandchildren this.

TM

My two cents:

A lot of us are electrical engineers. If twenty years ago, we turned our noses up at PLC's and stuck to designing "relay logic" circuits, we'd all be out of work. Instead, through education, albeit self-taught in most cases, we adapted.

I've worked at factories where "Dad" made a good living all his life. He may have only riveted two parts together. You know he will eventually lose his job to automation. After all his life working, he bets that he can get to retirement before he loses his job. What should "Junior" do? Should he look up to "Dad" and aspire to become a riveter too? No way! He needs to research the workforce for the jobs of today and get the skills to perform them.

On a more personal note, since 1980, I'm completely self-taught. The only computers I used in school were IBM punch-card types or paper tape reader types. I go to the Smithsonian once in a while to visit them. I bought my first PC back around 1987 and learned all I could by reading PC World and other periodicals. I did my own upgrades and maintenance through hard work and perserverence.

I always wanted to go back to school, until I realized the "teachers" were my collegues. In the real world, they had nothing on me. Now I come to places like this forum, and read up on the latest devices and technologies so I can be productive as an engineer TODAY.

Doesn't everyone need to adapt for the jobs of today?

The horse drawn plow, the cotton gin, the steam engine, the sweat shop sewing machines......Do you suppose those laborers were NOT wanting advances in technology?


Greg