What is happening with Automation?

[Chris1234]

Evening,

There seems to be a high demand for Automation / Controls Engineers at the moment. Larger companies seem to be starting new automation departments in their companies.
What do we think will happen, is it to help reduce the labour problems of the last year or so?
Is it to ramp up production now we are (allegedly) not going to be buying as much from abroad?

 

[SparkySy]

It's funny you should mention this I saw an advert for mechatronics Engineers the other day and hadn't heard of it.
The automation of things has been going on since before the industrial revolution, it doesn't need to have sleep or stop for a rest or moan about pay and working conditions! As technology has become better so has its integration with Mechanical engineering, there are not many things that can't be done these days by a robot or computer.
I think most things will be nearly completely autonomous within my lifetime especially the real mundane tasks!
That is of course unless we experience a massive solar flare that wipes out all out tech, or we end up blowing the sh 1 t out of each other in a massive war!

 

[rapparee]

Evening,

There seems to be a high demand for Automation / Controls Engineers at the moment. Larger companies seem to be starting new automation departments in their companies.
What do we think will happen, is it to help reduce the labour problems of the last year or so?
Is it to ramp up production now we are (allegedly) not going to be buying as much from abroad?

It's quite simple

We live in Western Europe with the highest wages in the world

If we want to compete with China, India and the rest,we need to be more productive

So we automate and have a single man and robot do the work of 5 men.

If not we will lose our edge

 

[Mikegh]

You can outsource the labour as is happening or automate production


What happens with the redundant local workforce


We saw what happened after the miners strike and the disintegration of cities and towns

 

[rapparee]

You can outsource the labour as is happening or automate production


What happens with the redundant local workforce


We saw what happened after the miners strike and the disintegration of cities and towns

They're to be redeployed somewhere else in the factory

The idea being that if we are automated, we are more competitive and are able to get more orders which in turn calls to raml up more production

It's about working smarter

Not work less

 

[brianmoooore]

My son has just finished an apprenticeship with a factory that is part of a large aerospace group. This factory is investing heavily in robotic machinery at the moment.
Fortunately, my son is their star robot programmer.

 

[pc1966]

You can outsource the labour as is happening or automate production

What happens with the redundant local workforce

We saw what happened after the miners strike and the disintegration of cities and towns

Those are very good points, but the sad reality is if you don't do it then your overseas competitors will and those jobs are still lost. Just that now the taxes/profits/future oppertunities have moved even further away from the local communities.

In general automaton can and has brought massive improvements to everyone's life. Centuries ago the majority of the population worked in agriculture for a pittance, now we have more food than is good for our health with a tiny fraction in farming/agriculture.

What really kills society/workers now is the modern speed of change. It is not decades or lifetimes for major changes to take place but a few years and so there is nothing to replace lost employment locally and no real chance of folks moving around, new new jobs appearing there, or the training needed to make them happen.

 

[littlespark]

It's funny you should mention this I saw an advert for mechatronics Engineers the other day and hadn't heard of it.

I have.

It’s what I’ve got a BSc (hons) in but at the time I graduated (2002) there wasn’t the jobs… I had a young family and other issues which I didn’t feel relocating was a good idea.
I fell back into doing my trade, as I had been doing agency work in the summers. One contract led me to a PAYE job.

 

[SparkySy]

I never knew there was such a thing I honestly thought it was some new mangled word! ?

 

[edexlab]

Very common and well established in Europe as a trade,
I think the origins are from after the War, Germany had a severe manpower shortage and not many people were keen to go work there due to a lack of structure, so they became good at Automation quickly

UK on the other hand had lots of manpower available from the Commonwealth countries, so we relied on cheap and skilled manual labour

 

[DPG]

Common sense says we should progress and automate tasks where we can. It's only what has been happening for many hundreds of years already.

No different to the invention of the combine harvester or the printing press etc.

 

[e-spark]

Evening,

There seems to be a high demand for Automation / Controls Engineers at the moment. Larger companies seem to be starting new automation departments in their companies.
What do we think will happen, is it to help reduce the labour problems of the last year or so?
Is it to ramp up production now we are (allegedly) not going to be buying as much from abroad?

I worked in oil and gas for years with a fairly big valve company; they spent fortunes developing automated test rigs. Great for me to learn and develop more skills but automation is not all that; you still need staff on hand as things do go wrong and hardware gets damaged etc.
It works fine on mass produced parts but not on bespoke engineering in my experience. Its as interesting as it is frustrating at times automation!

PS. developing nations also use automation so It wont bridge the labour shortage.