workplace—and the unified workforce implications of globalization.
Human-to-Machine Convergence
Significant challenges across geographic
boundaries include the skills gap, the need
to leverage machines for productivity gain
as well as the need to repurpose the existing
workforce for a more digitized future. This
will require a considerable focus from governments, businesses and universities which must
rethink human capital transformations. Artificial intelligence advancements and robotic
process automation hold immense promise
but are also viewed as threats to jobs growth.
However, effective prioritization and policy
innovation can help harvest transformative
benefits and create new types of jobs.
The sub-themes are:
› Machine Dominance. The relationship between machines and humans in the manufacturing environment is rapidly evolving as robots transition from being programmed only
to execute repetitive tasks to being collaborative and even sentient. As that transition
takes place, manufacturers must prepare the
human workforce for higher-level tasks.
› Human Capital Transformation. To overcome a looming skills gap and transition the
current workforce to thrive in a more digitized future, manufacturers must clearly define the skills that will be required, take an
inventory of current capabilities, and provide tools that enable self-training and skills
certification.
A Ne w World of Insights
The general outlines of what future factories and plants will look like are now discernable. They will be organized for greater speed, flexibility, productivity,
and efficiency. The people who work in them
will be highly skilled about advanced digital
technologies and able to work cross-functionally across the connected enterprise.
The underlying trends compelling these
changes appear to be inexorable. Rapidly
changing and increasingly sophisticated information and operational technologies are
facilitating a shift to mass customization,
from mass production, making it possible to
satisfy individual needs for everything from
transportation to medicine. Pervasive digital
connectivity is generating vast new quantities of information about every aspect of the
manufacturing enterprise, the products and
parts that are made, and the customers these
products are sold to. As a result, new worlds
of insight are emerging into how manufacturing processes and manufactured products
can be improved, how unmet customer needs
can be addressed, and how new business
models and opportunities for manufacturers
can be identified.
Despite protests from some quarters, the
globalization of manufacturing, powered by
the relentless march of technology, will continue, leading to what some have envisioned
as the coming Internet of Manufacturing.
Of course, this highly connected, infor-
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On-board cognitive capabilities will anticipate
user preferences and adjust product configuration and performance accordingly, in much
the same way that Amazon presents purchase
options based on past customer choices.
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