What is the impact of new technologies?
- Mechanical arms being installed – workforce didn’t contract as needed human intervention and business expanding
- New technologies require training and testing – so not always time saving
- Impacts on all facets of business
- Involving people who will be using technology early on = more success
- IT systems don’t necessarily solve problems
- Monotonous or repetitive tasks – ideal for automation- speed up work/higher quality
- Workforce have to upskill – brings energy but also fear
- Technology changing so quickly – need to be tuned into this – as “new” technology could be old in 2 year’s time
- You don’t know what you don’t know – How can you build a culture that embraces change, if you don’t know change
- Technology sometimes means people don’t get to root cause – problem solving skills are reduced
- Example of big threat to can was innovation of plastic bottle. Now backlash against plastic bottles. Innovation not always long-term
- Last line of defense was the person checking before it went to customer. Total automation could miss this
- Retraining people to run robots
- Expectation of workers who will not be willing to do certain monotonous jobs
- Should industry focus on Recognition of Prior Learning to move people into other jobs
- Lots of data available; but no information..?