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“Early in the morning I feel a chill/The factory whistle blows loud and shrill” sang the late, great Warren Zevon in his 1987 song “The Factory.” Those lines nicely sum up the image of factory work — repetitive, mind-numbing, depersonalizing — that has dominated American culture since Henry Ford launched his Model T assembly line in the early years of the 20th century. But does it fairly describe the factory of today?
Eddy Azad doesn’t think so. He is chief executive officer of Parsec Automation, creator of a manufacturing execution system (MES) software platform. He believes the new wave of robotics is remaking the factory floor into an environment that promises to attract a new generation of human workers, and provide them with a rewarding career path.
He faces an uphill battle. Fast-forward 117 years from the birth of the Model T, with current Ford Motor Company CEO Jim Farley being told by plant workers late last year that “none of the young people want to work here.” He responded by boosting wages and benefits so that more temporary workers could transition to full-time employment, and wouldn’t have to take additional jobs outside the plant to make ends meet.
But more money isn’t the complete answer to combatting worker alienation in the modern-day factory. There’s still that nagging image, justified or not, of the place being loud, dirty, boring and just generally soul-sucking. And that’s what Azad wants to change.
He acknowledges the persistence of negative public perception. How many times, for example, have you viewed a graphic PowerPoint presentation in which a factory was represented by an icon consisting of a box with a belching smokestack? Nevertheless, he insists, “many operations today are very sophisticated. There are still a lot of old-school operations. But even at Ford, if you go to their shop floor, you see all sorts of advanced robotics and digital systems for controlling assembly.”
The problem, says Azad, is that many manufacturers are lagging in getting that message across — and, more importantly, backing it up with action. “It’s more than a matter of running machinery,” he says. “Education and re-education are very important. It’s about how you treat people, [offer] a career path, reskilling and educational opportunities, and compensation.”
The COVID-19 pandemic helped change manufacturing’s image by showcasing its critical role in saving lives, when it quickly ramped up production of vaccines and essential medical equipment, Azad points out. “That’s important to talk about.”
But talk alone won’t assuage a potential workforce that believes manufacturing is rapidly transitioning from the old human-centric operating model into one where humans won’t be needed anywhere. Already automation is replacing tasks all along the production line — why should a younger generation see opportunities there at all?
Azad replies that the digitization of many factory processes doesn’t preclude the presence of humans — on the contrary, it requires it. What’s different is the modern workforce’s required set of skills. In the years ahead, human reasoning and expertise will be needed to keep even the most sophisticated automated systems up and running, he says.
When it comes to defining the future role of people in a production plant, artificial intelligence has been called both villain and savior. Azad favors the latter characterization. He says AI will indeed take over many analytical tasks that are well beyond the capacity of the human brain to handle in the age of Big Data. He even sees the technology as essential to making domestic manufacturing competitive with offshore production. But he also envisions an enduring role in the plant for people. “It’s not about ‘lights-out’ factories,” he says, “but a good mix of humans in the loop, with automation augmented with AI.”
Younger workers, having grown up with cell phones, tablets and gaming systems, are actually predisposed to environments in which technology plays an important role, Azad says. The challenge for manufacturers lies in getting them to view the modern-day production environment as an extension of the digital world in which they already thrive. And, one hopes, where no whistles are heard.
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