Submitted by Erico Matias Tavares of Sinlair & Co
Some Thoughts on Automation
Will a robot steal your job?
It turns out that the answer depends on the prevailing macroeconomic conditions much more than people think.
We started our professional career at General Electric, when it was still being run by the legendary Jack Welch. At that point GE’s experience with automation had not been fantastic. It had been tried in several manufacturing facilities but managers invariably found that rather than improving the bottom line the new robots were creating increasing amounts of waste. In other words, they were making the same mistakes as before – only faster.
The focus then shifted to analyzing key business processes as a whole to figure out where they could be improved. In 1995 Welch implemented an ambitious Six Sigma program with the goal of massively reducing defects across all of GE’s businesses (a six sigma process only has 3.4 errors per million opportunities). In fact he made it central to the business strategy of the company, tying executive compensation to Six Sigma results and making sure that everyone at all levels got adequately trained on the concept.
As employees across the organization began figuring out opportunities for improvement, automation became a tool rather than the focus of the entire exercise.
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