A Gap for AI to Fill?

 Automation has long been championed as a driver of higher productivity in the manufacturing sector.  It has been very successful in some areas - most often in high volume manufacturing operations  such as automotive and computing.  We are all used to seeing robots carrying out activities such as welding car parts.

However in lower volume manufacturing operations, understandably, there has not been the same level of investment.  There is still a disconnect between the vision of automation and the technically and financially feasible creation of automation tools, flexible enough to cope with smaller batch numbers and run times.

Now there is hope that the addition of AI  and other advanced software technologies can bridge this gap and extend automation into more areas of manufacturing.  This allows intelligent control of flexible operations.  For example, vision systems allow machines to see what is happening, whether queue are forming and to assess the results of an operation such as assembly.  Overall control can be handled by a remote human operator who can monitor the images produced and adjust operations 'on the fly'.

Some technologies of interest are much simpler.  RFID tags are increasingly added to oomponents so they can be identified, located and handled more accurately.  This increase of contextual information enhances the ability of the larger systems and technologies to understand what is happening and make appropriate adjustments.

The net result is faster, smarter, more agile manufacturing systems - and, of course, higher productivity.

Enjoying the Heat?

 re you enjoying the period of hot weather we are in the middle of (in the UK)?  Some people don't but most seem to like it. 

Of course it may depend on your work situation.

If you can work from home in your tee shirt and shorts, you might think the hot weather is a bonus.  If, however, you have to of in to the office in s shirt snd tie (and even jacket) you might have a different idea. 

It might even make you ill or exacerbate a condition you already have.

In some industries, such as agriculture and construction,  there is a clear drop in productivity and/or effectiveness in hot weather - where there is a clear loss of working hours and some jobs cannot be carried out in extreme hear.

And if things are bad in the UK, spare a thought for southern Europe where temperatures are even higher.

And this heatwave is not a one-off incident or freak - it is the direction of travel. Global warming means we are increasingly likely to be exposed to such conditions.  We need to begin treating it as such.  We need top stop making small, temporary adjustments and plan an infrastructure that supports effective economic activity in the changing climate.

For example, we may have to switch working hours to cooler periods of the day, increase flexible working, improve (preferably passive) cooling of workplaces, and so on.

Such measures may be inconvenient and will obviously incur some cost but it may be preferable to always invoking emergency measures to protect the workforce from excessive heat and keep changing planned activity.

The Golden Thread

 There is a host of factors that determine the productivity of an organisation - operating at a number of different levels.  

For example, the productivity of an organisation that is making products that are not attractive to the intended customer base cannot be high, irrespective of whether the company is efficient.   Then, a company  that is making  products  the customers want has low productivity if it cannot meet the quality requirements of those customers.

So how does a company manage all these factors.  It is one of those things that can be explained simply.  The company needs to adopt a sensible and appropriate strategy and then execute that strategy effectively.

It does sound simple, doesn't it?  Yet, it isn't. The company has to have a kind of 'golden thread' running from the mission and vision through strategy to tactics ,, through critical  success factors and on to systems, processes and operations.

Spinning that thread is the job of the executive team - and is why they get highly paid.

We, productivity consultants and advisers, have to keep looking over their shoulders and providing them with data that addresses key performance indicators and helps their planning and decision-making. We can make good executives better - but we cannot make bad executives into good ones.  

If they don't recognise the need for the 'golden thread' and the need to pay attention to detail at all levels of the organisation, they are possibly beyond hope . They will (hopefully) address some of the many productivity factors, but they will not have the consistency of vision and approach that aligns all parts (and all people) of the oorganisation in pursuit of key success factors and the eventual mission