Category Archives: Automation

ACME The people responsible for shaping the future of transportation have gathered this week at the annual Center for Automotive Research Management Briefing Seminars.

The five-day conference attracts major players in the automotive industry from around the globe. Speakers include Michigan Lt. Gov. Brian Calley and the director of Ministry of the Economy of Mexicos Trade and NAFTA Office. But executives from BMW, Toyota, Tesla, General Motors, AM General, Bosch, Mazda, Volkswagen, IBM, Nissan, ExxonMobil and Lear Corporation took center stage, along with experts from dozens of development companies and suppliers.

Governors Hall at Grand Traverse Resort & Spa was filled with business people in dark blue jackets and black pantsuits, all of them focused on one thing the future of the automobile. Transportation is big business on a global stage, and the industry is in the midst of a technological upheaval.

Gasoline and diesel displaced horsepower a century ago. Electricity now is pushing fossil fuels off the worlds roads. At the same time, computers are in the early stages of removing humans from the drivers seat. Thats the gist of this weeks meeting in Acme electricity and automation.

As seen here today, highly automated driving is no longer a dream, but a reality, said Continental North America President Jeff Klei.

He spoke Monday afternoon outside the resort, where two cars a Cadillac ATS and a Chrysler 300 fitted with autonomous technology created by Continental and Magna International completed a 7-hour, 300-mile journey, 92 percent of it without any human driver input. The cars began in Detroit, drove through the Detroit-Windsor tunnel to Ontario, returned to the U.S. on the Bluewater Bridge, then cruised northwest to Acme.

Klei referred to the technology installed in the cars as a cruising chauffeur. Technically, that level of automation is called Level 3 or conditional automation. The designation means the vehicle can drive itself in certain environments, such as on a highway. Human control is required at toll booths and in complicated situations like busy city streets.

Levels 4 and 5 are designated as fully automated, technologies in which a human driver never is required. Level 4 is limited to a certain geographic area, such as on a proving ground or within a certain pre-mapped region. Level 5 would allow a vehicle to travel anywhere.

Current technology cant provide full automation, Ryan Eustace, vice president of autonomous driving for the Toyota Research Institute, told the crowd in Governors Hall.

Theres a lot of top-down human awareness that needs to be built in, he said.

He described the constant stream of unknowns on the road pedestrians, animals, broken water mains, traffic cops, accidents, poorly-marked detours as the social dance of driving.

It will be years, he said, before the eventual goal of an automated car that cant crash (because it warns the driver or automatically intervenes to prevent a crash) becomes reality.

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Experts talk automation in Acme - Traverse City Record Eagle

In 2012, two inspiring Ph.D.s, kos Tar and Jzsef Veres, were studying bionics and robotics in the same class in college. The two started a project to build a two-legged robot. During this research and development, one of the focus areas was to develop the senses of the robot to create its ability to touch and feel objects to measure forces on its leg along the X-Y-Z axes. This led them to the development of a layered structure in which silicone would actually change its form under a greater load and made measurement possible in all directions.

Since that time, OptoForce has become a market leader in helping to bring multi-axial force and torque control with optical technology to a wide range of businesses and industries relying on industrial automation and robotics for their operations.

Today, OptoForce equips industrial robots with a sense of touch so that more tasks can be automated, freeing production from redundant, tedious tasks that are needed, and helping businesses save significant time and money.

The company, based in Budapest, Hungary with customers and distributors located around the world, recently announced the opening of its U.S. office to help companies across the U.S. and Canada.

Here are some of the company capabilities.

Optical Force Sensing

Optical force sensing measures deformation and deducts the applied load. Strain gauge technology has been the most prominent on the market since its inception in 1938. The principles havent changed much since that time, and so the primary limitations such as brittle structure, expensive manufacturing and heavy weight, has been constraining widespread application. Optical, silicone-based-force sensors, which were first commercially available from OptoForce, are now opening up new possibilities in automation for companies around the world.

3-Axis Force Sensing: OptoForce sensors have only one structure for measuring deformation along the 3-axes (X, Y, Z). In optical force sensors, photodiode measures the amount of reflected light, originally emitted by the LED. By comparing the measured values on the photodiodes, the acting forces can be precisely reconstructed, not just by the magnitude but also the direction

6-Axis Force/Torque Sensing: Six-axis sensors can measure the lateral forces along with the torques around the X, Y and Z vectors. An array of the three-axis sensors can be used to construct a six-axis force/torque sensor as well.

The OptoForce six-axis Force/Torque Sensors provide six degrees of freedom force and torque measurement and are designed for industrial automation applications that require human hand dexterity. The sensors are made to fit most of the currently used industrial robot arms and were developed so that integration with various interfaces is simple.

Available Applications

Typical applications are force control devices and also include assembly; teach in activities; crash detection; hand guidance tasks; fix and rotate; connectors insertion; peg insertion or pin-in-the hole tasks; used next to end effectors in case of grinding, polishing, deburring, finishing; and arc welding. OptoForce sensors provide a cost-effective yet smart solution. High durability and an unlimited number of custom opportunities resemble all of OptoForces sensor types.

More specifically, the following applications are examples of where robotics can take advantage of OptoForces sensors:

Presence Detection: The OptoForce Force Torque Sensor, along with the OptoForce Move application, fine tunes a Universal Robots protective stop function, so that even the smallest counterforces that are smaller than 10 N - can be perceived.

Center Pointing: The Center Point solution provides for an easy-to-find center point, even if the object has moved away from the original position.

Hand Guiding:It is possible to move the robot by hand on all 6 axes or by locking the movement of any selected axes for precise positioning. This is an easy-to-use for guiding the robot in a fast and precise way.

Path Recording: Using the Path Recording function of the OptoForce Hand Guide Toolbar can create a program within minutes so that any complex path can be easily recorded.

Polishing (Plastic and Metal): With this solution, you can remove the parting lines of plastic objects fast and easy. OptoForces polishing application provides high quality polishing, even with forces under 10 Newtons.

Box Insertion:The Box Insertion solution helps to insert items; for example, inserting a battery inside an electronic device with speed, accuracy, and simplicity.

Pin in the Hole:With this solution, robots can precisely fit or insert mating parts with very high tolerances. This solution helps to find the hole and place any pin into it in a fast and precise manner.

Stacking/Destacking:A force controlled application enables the stacking and de-stacking of products without needing to know the exact thickness and the height of the stack.

Palletizing: The force controlled application also allows the robot to stack products onto pallets. This can be quite advantageous for items that are hard to work such as cardboard boxes.

Metal Part Sanding:Force controlled metal sanding gives the robot the ability to precisely remove excess material from the machined surface. In addition to saving time and cost, it also reduces the health impacts to machine operators.

OptoForce sensors are being used by various companies on numerous projects around the world. A few real-world examples of where the sensors are being used include: a plastic parting line removal; an obstacle detection for a major car manufacturing company; and a center point insertion application for a car part supplier, where the task of the robot is to insert a mirror, completely centered, onto a side mirror housing.

The 6-Axis Force/Torque Sensors are available in two models: Model HEX-E and Model HEX-H. The main difference between the two is that the HEX-E has higher precision, while the HEX-H has lower deformation.

6-Axis F/T Sensor: Model HEX-E

Nominal Capacity

Deformation (Deflection)

Single axis overload

Fxy

200 N

1.7 mm

500%

Fz

200 N

0.3 mm

500%

Txy

10 Nm

( 2.5 )

500%

Tz

6.5 Nm

( 5 )

500%

6-Axis F/T Sensor: Model HEX-H

Nominal Capacity

Deformation (Deflection)

Single axis overload

Fxy

200 N

0.6 mm

500%

Fz

200 N

0.25 mm

500%

Txy

20 Nm

( 2 )

300%

Tz

13 Nm

( 3.5 )

300%

The Advantages of OptoForce Force/Torque Sensors

OptoForces HEX-E and HEX-H are sold through a global network of distributors primarily to systems integrator companies. The HEX-E and HEX-H hardware and software helps to shorten the systems integration time, as users have less programming to do when using the sensors, as well as the significant time savings derived from automating precision-oriented tasks.

During the research and development of its sensors, OptoForce took great strides to advance the capability of its sensors in contrast to existing sensors on the market:

Robust and Durable: Businesses generally have found it quite frustrating in robotics that many sensors tend to be fragile, and easy-to-break. OptoForce sensors represent regardless of the application durability and robustness. On numerous occasions, customers have stated that they have broken multiple, highly valuable F/T sensors manufactured by others over the years because of overload and higher impact forces. However, OptoForce has developed a highly deformative property of silicone to ensure its sensors guarantee precise measurements all the way up to 200% overload. Even after total deformation during 600% overload, the silicone regains its original form and is able to measure forces with the same precision, without any hint of permanent damage. This is because these sensors were built to resist sudden shocks.

Resolution:OptoForces sensors possess much greater resolution than other competitive offerings with a 0.1N or 0.001Nm.

Pricing/Value: Leveraging modern technological advances, the company has built sensors and can offer businesses a strong price and value for money. Its low prices give access to highly precise force/torque sensors to the marketplace.

Compatibility: OptoForce sensors received Universal Robot + Certification to validate its suitability for a product environment. OptoForce hardware and software components allow users to extend their force/torque sensing capabilities for those using Universal Robots or KUKA robots.

A Variety of Solutions: Depending on the application, there is a wide range of uses for both the 3 and 6 axis OptoForce sensors.

About the Author

kos Dmtr is the CEO of OptoForce. kos leads all strategic initiatives at OptoForce in helping customers save production time and money by equipping their robots with a sense of touch to automate tasks. He can be reached at akos.domotor@optoforce.com.

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Providing Industrial Robots with Senses for Automation - R & D Magazine

Aside from providing information to consumers, codes also underpin supply chain logistics, and are increasingly becoming the link between physical products and the digital world of online information. However, in order for codes to function correctly, they need to be accurate, from the date and batch information on the individual product, to the information on the boxes, all the way to up to the data displayed on the pallet label. Its this level of precision that ensures the product gets to the right place at the right time. This is the foundation of Coding Automation.

Domino believes strongly in helping our customers continue to elevate their production, and a large part of this is to help minimize errors and recalls. Quite often the coding technologies on the line are not integrated into the production automation and thus require a manual intervention of some formresulting in the increase for potential errors. Domino, on a global scale, is investing heavily in not only the software and systems to support Coding Automation, but the experts to marry the technology with the software itself and the impact to the customer.

To start, Domino is pleased to show the latest video in their thought leadership series, featuring Adem Kulauzovic, Director of Coding Automation for Domino North America. Adem begins this brief video by simplifying what our understanding of IOT and Coding Automation actually means, followed then by the impact of NOT automation and some true to life examples of Coding Automation success stories.

We worked with a major beverage company, and when they do a line change, the primary coders that would print on the cans would print the accurate date. But when they went into a case, it was a different date because they had the wrong product. They had an over $40,000 recall to get them properly coded. What we (Domino) offered was an automation solution that allowed them to press the ingredient product that they wanted, and that it would deploy the correct message, not only at their primary coders, but their secondary and tertiary. They have no human intervention, failures and efficiency is practically at 100%.

We encourage you to visit Domino at Pack Expo Las Vegas where Mr Kulauzovic will be presenting on Coding Automation, as well as offering the chance to discuss your coding automation needs. Can you afford NOT to have your coding technology automated?

For more information, click here

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Domino turns the tables and simplifies Coding Automation - Automation World

How likely are you to be replaced by a robot or a computer program? It depends, according to a new report,How Vulnerable Are American Communities to Automation, Trade and Urbanization? Workers in data entry, telemarketing and watch repair are most likely to be targeted by automation, while surgeons...not so much.

The study, prepared by the Center for Business and Economic Research (CBER) and the Rural Policy Institutes Center for State Policy at Ball State University, found that the rise of automation and offshoring could extend such job losses beyond the factory floor.

Automation is likely to replace half of all low-skilled jobs, says CBER director Michael Hicks. More worrisome is that there is considerable concentration of job loss risks across labor markets, educational attainment and earnings. This accrues across industries and is more pronounced across urban regions, where economies have concentrated all net new employment in the United States for a generation.

The study also found that low risk of automation is associated with much higher wages, averaging about $80,000 a year. Occupations with the highest risk of automation have incomes of less than $40,000 annually.

The top automatable occupations, number of jobs and average annual salary includes data entry keyers, 216,000, $29,000; mathematical science occupations, 1,800, $66,210; telemarketers, 237,000, $23, 530; insurance underwriters, 103,000, $65,000; tax preparers, 90,400, $36,450; photographic process workers and processing machine operators, 28,800, $26,590; library technicians, 101,800, $34,750.

The leastautomatable occupations, number of jobs and average annual salary includes recreational therapists, 18,000, $45,890; emergency managers, 10,000, $67,330; first-line supervisors of mechanics, installers and repairers, 447,100, $63,010; mental health and substance abuse social workers, 117,000, $42,170; audiologists, 13,200, $74,890; orthotrists and prosthetists, 8,300, $64,430; health technologists and technicians, 102,200, $41,260; and hearing aid specialists, 5,900, $49,600.

While drafters, computer programmers, data entry keyers, statisticians and mathematicians and film and video editors were considered the most offshorable occupations, the list of least offshorable occupations closely mimicked the list of least automatable occupations, with the edition of the 6,800 oral and maxillofacial surgeons who average an annual wage of $233,900.

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Audiologists, Emergency Managers and Occupational Therapists Face Low Risk from Automation - EHS Today

Download this article in PDF format.

Designing a power-supply system for industrial automation equipment requires a thorough understanding of the surroundings and conditions that affect the functionality of the wide range of equipment involved. The most important design decision is whether to use linear power supplies or switch-mode power supplies (SMPS).

Today, SMPS are the most popular because of their high efficiency. However, they do have downsides that make linear supplies more desirable. Linear supplies also have their disadvantages, but often turn out to be the best choice for industrial use. Even better is a have your cake and eat it too solution: Use a linear supply with low-dropout (LDO) regulators.

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Linear vs. SMPS

As mentioned, the primary reason for using switch-mode supplies is their high efficiency. Typical figures vary with the application, but efficiencies of greater than 90% are typical. High efficiency translates into minimum power loss in the supply with its attendant low heat dissipation. In large complex industrial settings with lots of equipment efficiency, power usage and heat dissipation become critical factors in terms of operating costs.

The main disadvantage of the SMPS is its noise generation. High-frequency pulse-width-modulated (PWM) pulses are filtered to form the desired dc level, but the resulting ripple and radiated or conducted noise generated can negatively impact the powered equipment and nearby devices.

Linear supplies with linear regulators dont have the noise problem. Furthermore, ripple is greatly reduced by large capacitive filters and the feedback action of the regulator circuitry.

1. Often, a traditional linear IC regulator architecture will use a Darlington bipolar series pass transistor.

The big issue with these supplies, though, is that the efficiency is very poor (Fig. 1). A series pass transistor between the dc input voltage and the regulated dc output requires a minimum amount of voltage drop in order to maintain regulation. This voltage, called the dropout or headroom voltage, is usually a minimum of 1.5 to 2.5 V or more.

Since the output current passes through the pass transistor, this device will dissipate a significant amount of power, all of which shows up as heat. As the input or output voltages vary, the feedback senses the change and drives the pass transistor to adjust its conductance to compensate from any variation. This linear operation requires the minimum overhead be observed to maintain regulation. The overall benefit is no noise generation traded off for efficiency.

One way to get the benefits of low noise and good efficiency concurrently is to use a LDO regulator.

LDO Operation and Benefits

One definition of LDO is a regulator that operates with a series-pass-transistor voltage drop of less than 1 V. A dropout voltage of 1 V or more defines a conventional linear regulator.

A dropout of less than 1 V can be achieved with a PNP bipolar series pass transistor, but modern designs generally use a P-type MOSFET with very low dropout voltages of less than 100 mV (in addition to low on-resistance) (Fig. 2). When working with low supply voltages of 3.3 V or less, low dropout levels become a significant percentage of the output, so less is more.

2. Heres a typical IC LDO circuit with a P-type MOSFET pass transistor.

The regulation process is similar to other series regulators in that any output voltage change is sensed and the gate drive to the MOSFET is varied to correct for the variation.

Key benefits of an LDO include:

The LDO is often used to power processors and field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) that require the fast transient response. And theyre ideal for critical linear circuits like signal-conditioning amplifiers, oscillators, and PLL synthesizers. In industrial-automation applications, LDOs make good regulators for sensors, data converters, and wireless/communications/networking circuits.

The Current-Limiting Issue

Some applications put excessive stress on power supplies, especially in industrial automation. High temperature and high voltages are very common. Another potential problem is excessive current draw or a short circuit. Sudden high current flow will typically damage the regulator unless its compensated for. That problem can be handled by incorporating LDOs with internal overcurrent protection.

Two basic types of current limiting are used in LDOs: brick wall and foldback. In the brick-wall method, a current limit is set and if that limit is exceeded, the LDO abruptly shuts down. The regulator continues to supply current at the cutoff level, but the output voltage is no longer regulated. The output voltage becomes the product of the current-limit value and the load resistance. The series pass transistor will continue to dissipate power until the internal protection process of thermal shutdown turns off the device.

The foldback method of current limiting attempts to keep total power dissipation at a constant level. If overcurrent conditions occur, the circuitry reduces the output current and theres a decrease in output voltage (Fig. 3). This keeps the power dissipation within the capability of the device. After that, thermal protection kicks in if elevated temperature conditions persist.

3. Looking at a comparison of output voltage vs. load current, it shows that foldback reduces the output voltage as output current exceeds the limit of the device.

Different LDOs use different methods of current limiting, so you should choose one that fits your application. For example, Texas Instruments offers the TPS7A16 LDO with brick-wall current limiting and the TLV71P LDO with foldback current limiting. More details on current limiting can be found at this reference.

Thermal Issues

While LDOs are more efficient than standard linear regulators, they still dissipate power. Most LDOs also include thermal-shutdown circuitry, which turns off the device if the temperature exceeds the limitusually in the 150-170 range. In some applications, a heat sink may be needed.

In addition, careful attention should be given to the thermal conditions in the power supply. Besides the thermal specifications of the IC itself, you should consider other factors such as PCB design and component placement in regards to the interaction with other devices. The greater the copper area devoted to the LDO, the better the heat dissipation. Other factors to consider are ambient temperature and airflow ventilation.

You can learn more about thermal considerations from videos that shows you how to measure thermal properties and how to avoid damaging an LDO through thermal excess. This and other LDO videos are available from Texas Instruments.

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LDOs Bring High Efficiency and Low Noise Regulation to Industrial Automation - Electronic Design

The rise of automation isnt all doom and gloom for Indian IT.

Even as traditional IT jobs, such as data entry and server maintenance, are expected to decline over the next five years, new-age jobs are emerging, according to a report by Simplilearn, a San Francisco- and Bengaluru-based online professional skilling platform. New career paths for Indias IT workforce will open up in digital domains such as big data, artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, and cybersecurity, the company said in a press release on Aug. 01. Simplilearn surveyed 7,000 IT professionals, and mined job portals such as LinkedIn and Naukri.com for its assessment.

Here are the roles that are likely to have the most vacancies in the next few years:

But just because there are tens of thousands of openings for a web services consultant doesnt necessarily make it the most lucrative option. For instance, big data architect openings are far fewer in number but pay much more, according to the report. While a web services consultant position offers a median salary of Rs9.27 lakh ($14,461) annually, a big data architect could rake in Rs20.67 lakh ($32,234).

With technology evolving fast, its become all the more important for techies to keep their skills up to date with short learning programmes, according to Kashyap Dalal, the chief business officer of Simplilearn.

It is more a cultural shift people will need to go through, he said. They need to get used to the fact that every year, theyll have to learn something. Everybody will need to make some time, and companies will need to facilitate it, too.

The urgency to re-skill or perish is especially striking people with mid-level experience: Nearly 57% of the 7,000 IT professionals looking to level up on Simplilearn had four to 10 years of work experience, the companys report said. Meanwhile, only 11% of those with under four years of experience were seeking the online courses. This could be because early-stage employees, i.e. fresh college graduates, often receive in-house training at their respective companies, Dalal suggested, so they dont have to seek out their own resources, unlike their more experienced counterparts.

Around 41% of those looking to skill up on Simplilearn were from Indias IT capital Bengaluru, which is home to the most tech professionals, Dalal said, besides startups and older IT establishments such as Infosys and Wipro. The Delhi-National Capital Region (NCR), which is now Indias hottest startup destination, followed with 25%.

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Automation will bring new jobs to India, and these are the skills needed to work with robots - Quartz

The dictionary definesautomationas the technique of making an apparatus, a process, or a system operate automatically.

We define automation as "the creation and application of technology to monitor and control the production and delivery of products and services.

Using our definition, the automation profession includes everyone involved in the creation and application of technology to monitor and control the production and delivery of products and services; and the automation professional is any individual involved in the creation and application of technology to monitor and control the production and delivery of products and services.

Automation provides benefits to virtually all of industry. Here are some examples:

Automationcrosses all functions within industry from installation, integration, and maintenance to design, procurement, and management. Automation even reaches into the marketing and sales functions of these industries.

Automation involves a verybroad range of technologies including robotics and expert systems, telemetry and communications, electro-optics, Cybersecurity, process measurement and control, sensors, wireless applications, systems integration, test measurement, and many, many more.

Think about the cell phone and computer you use every day to do your job. Think about the car you drive to take to work. Think about the food you eat; water you drink; clothes you wear; and appliances you use to store, prepare, and clean them. Think about the television you watch, video games you play, or music system you listen to. Think about the buildings you visit. Think about any modern convenience or necessity. Just about anything you can think of is the result of complex processes. Without talented individuals to design, build, improve, and maintain these processes, these technological advances would never have occurred and future innovations would be impossible. Without automation professionals, our world and our future would be very different.

Automation professionals are responsible for solving complex problems in many vital aspects of industry and its processes. The work of automation professionals is critically important to the preservation of the health, safety, and welfare of the public and to the sustainability and enhancement of our quality of life.

The U.S. government, among many others, recognizes the unsung value of automation professionals. Support for the importance of automation to industry comes from the United States Senate Committee on Appropriations. On 30 June 2009, the committee submitted report language (including the excerpt shown below) to accompany the bill: H. R. 2847 (Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010) emphasizing the importance of automation to industry:

Supporting the Nation's manufacturers, especially small businesses, is critical to keeping America innovative in a global marketplaceMEP, NIST, and its partners are directed to consider the importance automation plays in accelerating and integrating manufacturing processes. The topic of automation cuts across all levels of industry, rather than serving as a stand-alone technology, and particularly affects the fields of control systems cyber security, industrial wireless sensors, systems interoperability, and other basic automation technologies necessary for the success of industrial enterprises. NIST is encouraged to consult and collaborate with independent experts in the field of automation to support the agency's efforts in working with industry to increase innovation, trade, security, and jobs."

Automation professionals do and will continue to play a crucial role in protecting us from cyber-attack; enhancing our quality of life; and ensuring the reliability, efficiency, safety, constant improvement, and competitiveness of our electric power systems, transportation systems, manufacturing operations, and industry as a whole. Without these individuals, we cannot advance into the future.

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What is Automation?- ISA

The Information Technology has never had it so bad as it has since a year ago when job cuts and summary dismissals have been the order of the day. No matter which blue chip IT firm an individual works for, the jobs they are hold at risk, irrespective of seniority.

Reuters

A survey by Simplilearn, How Automation is Changing Work Choices: The Future of IT Jobs in India, says that the future of IT is in Cyber Security, Big Data and Data Science, Big Data Architect, Big Data Engineer, Artificial Intelligence and IoT (Internet of Things) Architect, and Cloud Architect .

The jobs that will disappear will be anything in the next five are those that are repetitive and can be taken over by Artificial Intelligence (AI) such as manual testing, infrastructure management, BPO and system maintenance will massively decline over the next five years.

Core development jobs will not feel the impact of job loss, said Kashyap Dalal, Chief Business Officer. The IT industry is seeing the impact of two major trends - one, that of AI and machine learning. And second, that of legacy skill-sets going out of date. While there is risk to jobs due to these trends, the good news is that a huge number of new jobs are getting created as well in areas like Cyber Security, Cloud, DevOps, Big Data, Machine Learning and AI. It is clearly a time of career pivot for IT professionals, to make sure they are where the growth is."

The report further provides insights into the preferred technology skills based on a survey of 7,000 IT professionals from key metros. Over 50 percent of IT professionals with work experience of 410 years have invested in courses and training programs to help them build new skills.

Big Data & Analytics, Project Management, Cloud Computing, Cyber Security, Agile & Scrum, and Digital Marketing are among the top domains in which professionals are investing for online training programs.

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Automation, Artificial Intelligence to make many IT jobs obsolete over next 5 years, says survey - Firstpost

There is widespread concern these days that robots and automation will soon be permeating much of the American workforce -- taking over factory floors, performing hospitality jobs, becoming ubiquitous in the casinos of Las Vegas. Even Silicon Valley worries about automations effects, although they likely wont be as severe there as elsewhere.

Some recent studies add to these fears, predicting sizable job displacement from numerous forms of automation and artificial intelligence in virtually all corners of the economy. But just as automation will alter industries differently, its effects will be much more intensive in some regional economies.

To estimate the potential effects of automation in those areas, Governing utilized definitions in a University of Oxford study assessing the automatability of individual occupations, then compared them with the Department of Labors most recent occupational employment estimates for the 100 largest U.S. metro areas. About 65 percent of Las Vegas area jobs were found to be susceptible to automation, the highest in any metro area. Much of that stems from the regions large armies of servers, food preparers, cashiers and other occupations thought to be highly automatable. El Paso, Texas, and Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla., similarly employ many of these workers, and registered the next-highest shares of potential automatability.

Professors Carl Frey and Michael Osborne, who conducted the Oxford study, assigned a probability to each occupation by evaluating the extent to which its work activities require creativity, social intelligence and perception, and manipulation. Retail sales accounted for the single largest number of possible job displacements as a result of automation in most regions. The New York metro area, for instance, employs more than 500,000 retail salespersons and cashiers. Predominantly low-wage food service jobs are susceptible to drastic change as well, both in the United States and overseas. Robots will start delivering Dominos pizza orders in Hamburg, Germany, this summer.

Regions with higher education levels should fare better. But the Brookings Institutions Mark Muro points out that theres more to it than that. Physical jobs that are more complex or personalized -- the kinds you wont find on assembly lines -- may actually be less vulnerable to automation than routine office jobs. Often, lower-skill but physical, personal or direct-caring occupations seem quite durable, Muro says.

Middle-class, white-collar jobs, on the other hand, can be significantly liable to automation. A forthcoming report from Brookings reviews hundreds of U.S. occupations, finding use and knowledge of digital skills doubled between 2002 and 2016 and led to a wide array of jobs being digitized, including those of office clerks, customer service representatives and accounting workers. The middle is where there will be some of the most disruption, Muro says.

Some well-paying jobs in demand today arent off-limits from automation, either. A McKinsey Global Institute study concluded that some of the jobs most at risk involve data collecting and processing. Around a quarter of the activities of attorneys and physicians were deemed to be potentially automatable.

Large regions with jobs least susceptible to computerization, using the Oxford studys definitions, are high-tech centers, such as San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, Calif., and Durham-Chapel Hill, N.C. Other metro areas with highly educated workforces such as Washington, D.C., and Boston similarly appear to have fewer jobs vulnerable to displacement. Regional economies relying heavily on education and health care may be less prone to automation because jobs requiring a high degree of human interaction are thought to be among the most resilient.

(Larger markers represent regions more susceptible to automation based on a University of Oxford study. View an interactive map here.)

Of course, widespread automation wont happen overnight. McKinsey projected that half the work activities across the economy today could be automated by 2055. An analysis by PricewaterhouseCoopers concluded that 38 percent of American jobs were at high risk of automation by the early 2030s. McKinsey studied prior cases of technological upheaval, finding that the time between initial commercial availability and peak adoption ranged between eight and 28 years.

The biggest unknown at this point is whether automation will eliminate more jobs than it creates. Automation itself isnt new, and prior advances in technology and industrialization havent brought about higher overall unemployment over the long term. But a growing number of academics are concluding that automation this time around could, in fact, wield noticeably more harmful effects on the workforce. One highly cited paper by economists Daron Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo forecasts lower overall employment resulting from the introduction of more robots into the workplace.

Other researchers, notably ones at the Economic Policy Institute, argue that automation has not led and will not lead to higher joblessness. Experts appear to be divided almost evenly on this question: A 2014 Pew Research Center survey of experts found 48 percent agreeing that automation, robots and artificial intelligence will displace more jobs than they create by 2025.

While many unknowns remain, it wouldnt hurt for policymakers to start thinking about how to respond.

Some state workforce boards are looking at the issue. States already typically maintain labor market information divisions that project which occupations will be in demand in future years. Preparing farms and their workers for automation was the subject of a recent meeting of the California State Board of Food and Agriculture. While there arent yet many programs that specifically address automation, some states are engaged in activities that could help alleviate the impact of job losses. Apprenticeships are gaining a lot of attention and are expanding to health care, finance and other fields where they havent been common before. The model is being modified and theyre really trying to ramp it up, says Scott Sanders, executive director of the National Association of State Workforce Agencies.

For workers displaced by automation, community and technical colleges will play a crucial role in the pursuit of new careers. The federal government, however, has historically focused little on workforce training, spending much less than other wealthy nations do. We dont do training in America, we do education, says Anthony Carnevale, who directs the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. Our policy is: Go to college.

It was only a few short decades ago that computers began revolutionizing the American workplace. Regions and employers that were early adopters with skilled workforces are well ahead today, and its likely they will continue to be in the years to come.

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Is Automation Anxiety All a Hype? - Governing

MANILA - The shift to automation can displace 40,000 low-skilled workers in the business process outsourcing industry, but will open up job opportunities for nearly 700,000 higher-skilled counterparts, an industry official said Tuesday.

Low-skilled workers include receptionists and clerks. Job demand will shift to medium and high-skilled jobs that offer higher compensation, said Alex Tined, program director of the IT and Business Process Association of the Philippines.

"We need to teach them the new jobs. The challenge now is to make sure that we have people to do the mid and high skill jobs," Tined said.

Tined said some 388,000 jobs would be added to the middle level and another 309,000 to the high skill level, bringing the industry workforce to 1.8 million by 2022 from the current 1.14 million.

The BPO industry is a key job generator and source of dollar earnings that help strengthen the peso.

Tined said the Philippines had fallen to third place among the world's top BPO destinations, as India and China lure companies with more advanced technologies.

China is a relative newcomer to the race, previously dominated by India and the Philippines.

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BPO automation may displace 40000, add 700000 jobs - ABS-CBN News