Page 608 - Sensors and Control Systems in Manufacturing

Economic and Social Inter ests in the Workplace
designing and updating the databases and expert systems. Both the 561
machines and robots will be extremely complex, so the operators,
who are responsible for their installation, let alone maintenance, will
probably not be able to understand the complete system; that is
already the situation with large-scale computers.
Some engineers expect to continue to rely on people to carry out
some jobs. They argue that there is little point in taking everyone out
of the plants just for the sake of doing so, and in any case, the devices
that can do these jobs are likely to be very expensive. In addition, even
with all these elaborate sensors, there is the possibility of some cata-
strophic failure, and it will be a very long time before managers are
prepared to go home at night and leave a plant completely unattended.
In any case, working conditions will be very good, and working
hours will be short, so there is every reason to employ some people in
the plants.
However, other experts say there is no point in thinking in terms
of staffing the plant at all, except in an external supervisory role. They
say that, because the machines will be quite complex, maintenance
fitters will not know how to rectify faults. Then, because the sensors
and control systems will be so advanced, the machine will in any case
be better able to trace faults and put them right, so rectification by
humans may not be helpful at all. Clearly, that stage is still a long way
away, but managers need to be ready for it.
But just how many people will be needed in manufacturing by the
year 2020? Some experts estimate that the work force in manufactur-
ing will be cut by 55 to 65 percent in the next ten years, while the
number of people actually employed on the shop floor is likely to drop
by about 90 percent. The effect of a 70 percent reduction in the work
forces of the major industrialized nations is shown in Table 11.9.
Although these figures appear alarming, they reflect similar
trends that have taken place in agriculture, process industries, auto-
motive industries, and computer industries. However, those changes

Current industrial Industrial work force
Country work force reduced by 70%
United States 30,000,000 9,000,000
Japan 19,500,000 5,800,000
West Germany 11,500,000 3,400,000
Italy 7,700,000 2,300,000
France 7,500,000 2,250,000
United Kingdom 5,300,000 1,600,000
Sweden 1,350,000 400,000

TABLE 11.9 Worldwide Work Force Reduction