productivity

Following are some of the reasons for automation:

1. Increased productivity: Automation of manufacturing operations holds the promise of

increasing the productivity of labour. This means greater output per hour of labour input. Higher

production rates (output per hour) are achieved with automation than with the corresponding

manual operations.

2. High cost of labour: The trend in the industrialized societies of the world has been

toward ever-increasing labour costs. As a result, higher investment in automated equipment has

become economically justifiable to replace manual operations. The high cost of labour is forcing

business leaders to substitute machines for human labour. Because machines can produce at

higher rates of output, the use of automation results in a lower cost per unit of product.

3. Labour shortages: In many advanced nations there has been a general shortage of

labour. Labour shortages stimulate the development of automation as a substitute for labour.

4. Trend of labour toward the service sector: This trend has been especially prevalent

in India. There are also social and institutional forces that are responsible for the trend. There

has been a tendency for people to view factory work as tedious, demeaning, and dirty. This view

has caused them to seek employment in the service sector of the economy government, insurance,

personal services, legal, sales, etc. Hence, the proportion of the work force employed in

manufacturing is reducing.

5. Safety: By automating the operation and transferring the operator from an active participation

to a supervisory role, work is made safer.

6. High cost of raw materials: The high cost of raw materials in manufacturing results

in the need for greater efficiency in using these materials. The reduction of scrap is one of the

benefits of automation.

7. Improved product quality: Automated operations not only produce parts at faster rates

but they produce parts with greater consistency and conformity to quality specifications.

8. Reduced manufacturing lead time: With reduced manufacturing lead time automation

Following are some of the advantages of automation:

1. Automation is the key to the shorter workweek. Automation will allow the average

number of working hours per week to continue to decline, thereby allowing greater

leisure hours and a higher quality life.

2. Automation brings safer working conditions for the worker. Since there is less direct

physical participation by the worker in the production process, there is less chance of

personal injury to the worker.

3. Automated production results in lower prices and better products. It has been estimated that

the cost to machine one unit of product by conventional general-purpose machine tools

requiring human operators may be 100 times the cost of manufacturing the same unit using

automated mass-production techniques. The electronics industry offers many examples of

improvements in manufacturing technology that have significantly reduced costs while increasing

product value (e.g., colour TV sets, stereo equipment, calculators, and computers).

4. The growth of the automation industry will itself provide employment opportunities. This

has been especially true in the computer industry, as the companies in this industry have

grown (IBM, Digital Equipment Corp., Honeywell, etc.), new jobs have been created.

These new jobs include not only workers directly employed by these companies, but also

computer programmers, systems engineers, and other needed to use and operate the

computers.

5. Automation is the only means of increasing standard of living. Only through productivity

increases brought about by new automated methods of production, it is possible to advance

standard of living. Granting wage increases without a commensurate increase in productivity

will results in inflation. To afford a better society, it is a must to increase productivity.

In so doing, it reduces the need for skilled labour. The manual work left by automation

requires lower skill levels and tends to involve rather menial tasks (e.g., loading and

unloading workpart, changing tools, removing chips, etc.). In this sense, automation tends

to downgrade factory work.

2. There will be a reduction in the labour force, with resulting unemployment. It is logical

to argue that the immediate effect of automation will be to reduce the need for human

labour, thus displacing workers.

3. Automation will reduce purchasing power. As machines replace workers and these workers

join the unemployment ranks, they will not receive the wages necessary to buy the products

brought by automation. Markets will become saturated with products that people cannot

afford to purchase. Inventories will grow. Production will stop. Unemployment will reach

epidemic proportions and the result will be a massive economic depression