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Category Archives: Automation

5 Ways Marketing Automation Helps Startups Succeed – Entrepreneur

Posted: June 15, 2017 at 9:07 pm

Lets face it: It can be overwhelming to keep up with newdigital-marketing strategies, social media, drip campaigns and all the other emerging opportunitiesin the world of marketing technology. There's so much to choose from, it now has its own blended term-- martech.

While the worlds biggest corporations dedicate entire teams to social-media monitoring and feedback, startup leaders must runmuch tighter ships. The Chief Marketing Officer often is the same person as the CEO and the CFO. Those challenges make it more difficult to stay on trend when it comes to marketing outreach -- much less effectively adopt and implement these strategies.

Still, martechholds tremendous growth potential for startups whose leaders can make time to explore it. The only caveat: People choose small businesses for a reason. Dont begin to rely so heavily on marketing automation that you lose your personal touch.

In the bigger picture, the time startups invest in marketing automation will streamline operations and help companies grow faster (and often in profound ways). Here are a few reasons to consider making the move to integrate automation in your marketing plan.

New startups often feel like minnows trying to outswim and outsmart sharks in a game of survival.Reports reveal thatnearly half of small-business owners manage marketing efforts on their own, all while carrying out other dutiesfrom human resources to sales. Marketing automation helps bring some balanceby offering incredibly savvy and sophisticated tools that also are incredibly easy to use and set.

Dont know much about analytics or lead-nurturing?"Thats OK. Companies such asGetResponse and Act-On do, and they can help reach out, clear outand make marketing decisions for you. Best of all? Those decisions happenautomatically, based on specifications you set during your onboarding process. That can add hours to your day, not to mention thousands (or millions) in sales when well-utilized.

Related:7 Tools to Automate Your Marketing Tasks (Without Blowing the Budget)

The information gathered during marketing automation goes far beyond contacts and potential customers. It's actual data -- big data.It's the type of knowledge that can help you make smarter decisions about how to move your business forward.

Marketing automation can help you determine which style of language or toneworks best with different audience segments, which audiences are more likely to buy certain productsand when your customers are most likely to shop. It even can help you understand where you might be losing customers who drop off during their digital journeys. Why do they abandon their shopping carts? How can you give them more incentive to complete the sale and drive conversion-rate growth?

Basically, its like employing a full-scale marketing agency. Except its a lot cheaper, and its always at your disposal -- no matter how small your company is right now.

Related: 5 Misconceptions Small-Business Owners Have About Big Data

Are you nurturing your prospects? If youre running a startup, chances are good you dont have time for this crucial business-development function. Nurturing your leads requires more than an ongoing touch-base or check-in. It means helping steer your prospect toward your desired goal or outcome.

Nurtured leads show a 20 percent increase in sales compared to non-nurtured leads. Marketing automation can help you manage redirects when someone has left an item in an online shopping cart and even send product discounts or other incentives if a customer fails to buy after your first reminder. It's all based on a series of simple "if/when" statements you establish when you create your campaign.

In essence, automation turns you into a savvy marketing professional with an endless number of hands to hold tight to your customers throughout their buying journeys.

Related:How to Automate Your Social-Marketing Efforts

In todays fast-paced business world, its nearly impossible to reach out to potential business partners manually -- at least not efficiently. Marketing automation can help here, too.

Once you create your list, marketing-automation tools can do much of the work for you. They even can help create content and determine its effectiveness for future campaigns. That means no more hiring freelancers, working with mail servers or responding to individually to every inquiry.

Martech can handle those tasks -- and a lot more -- starting around $50 per month. Once you see its benefits, you'll want to move on and allow Martech tocreate custom forms and landing pagesas well as manage your responses to leads generated by those assets.

Related:9 Ways to Save Time and Money With Marketing Automation

It probably goes without saying, but like many other cloud-based services today, marketing automation is scalable. You can pay based on your current number of contacts, and the service will grow along with you.

Related: 9 Tools to Run and Scale Your Marketing Agency

Marketing automation holds tremendous potential for any startup. Ultimately, marketing automation should help customers better understand your brand, your visionand your products. Its one more way to extend your presence and keep the big fish circling elsewhere.

Dan Newman is the president ofBroadsuitewhere he works side by side with brands big and small to help them be found, seen and heard in a cluttered digital world. He is also the author of two books, is a business professor and a...

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It’s Time IT Process Automation And Manufacturing Meet – Manufacturing Business Technology

Posted: at 9:07 pm

Manufacturing thrives on automation. Media outlets constantly tout the latest in robotics and other automation technologies, and we continue to eagerly soak up every efficiency-promise therein.

Yet, when it comes to IT process automation, the good energy fades as many long-term, highly-skilled IT employees see process automation as less an ally and more a threat to their job security.

But its not like the industrial revolution, where automation was designed to replace workers. Instead, IT process automation can fuel growth, automating tedious manual processes and allowing your technical resources to focus on more strategic, growth-oriented initiatives.

Make Automations Value Apparent

The best way to address hesitation to automate is to recruit an automation champion. This individual, whether yourself or someone else from your IT team, can help drive the internal conversations needed to begin changing process automation perceptions.

Kick things off by having your automation champion proactively schedule one-on-ones with department heads. During these meetings, the two parties can discuss the benefits of process automation, such as simplicity and time-savings, specific to that individuals department.

But whats most important to discuss during these meetings is how automation impacts your customer. Because in the end, its the customer who most benefits from accelerating efficiency to helping meet rigorous quality standards.

Aim for the Moon, not Mars

As these conversations occur, the automation hype should follow. If not, its time to put your automation where your mouth is. For that, youll want to choose the proper process to automate.

Initially, you may find yourself tempted to tackle a complex process bogging down the business. However, much like running a marathon, its best to train with smaller sessions before tackling the full thing.

For example, my team recently worked on a project with our companys quality department. Previously, any and all approvals faced a lengthy list of signatures, all in a specific order, needed to garner full approval.

Knowing the process was far from simple, we met with the quality department and talked through the complexities, keeping an eye on ways to shortcut the process and simplify where possible.

Through this collaboration, we mapped a shorter approval process and developed an automated workflow for it, setting up activity-triggered notifications and updates. This pushed the approval process along faster, while also keeping a record of approval statuses in real time.

For your own efforts, its best to start small, learn and grow. Even simple processes can deliver huge returns on time once automated. More importantly, each successful initiative builds your credibility and grows positive sentiment in your organization, enabling even greater success in the future.

Broaden Automation Initiatives, Develop a System

As your automation teams reputation begins to grow, its likely other departments across the organization may begin to request automation initiatives of their own. While an exciting notion, these future initiatives will tend to be more complex in nature. To put your team in a position for success, its important to map out a process for the automations themselves.

For example, before any automation actually occurs, both the automation team and the department receiving the helping hand should meet to rigorously review current processes.

Specifically, the parties should brainstorm ways to streamline and accelerate the process up for review. After all, automating an inefficient process only makes you inefficient at a quicker pace.

As the projects come in, encourage your team to continue strengthening its own processes, finding a system that works regardless of the challenge at hand. By taking on new initiatives while focusing on your own process improvement, your team will soon be a well-oiled automation machine.

Strive for Continuous Improvement

Speaking of future success, to maximize the benefits offered by process automation, its important to create a mentality of continuous improvement. Automating a process should not be the end goal. Instead, automation should spur the ongoing enhancement of your organizational processes.

The automation team should keep the conversation going by scheduling check-ins with various partner departments every three months for the first year after automation. After the first year, keep the door open for further improvement with semi-annual check-ins.

Ready to start automating? If youre still wondering where to start, first, do your shopping for an automation provider. Some platforms will cater toward code-heavy teams. If youre looking for a low-code automation platform, youre likely to go with someone like PMG.

Whatever solution you end up going with, just remember establishing automation is a marathon, not a sprint. But once youre running the race, youll move much faster than you were before.

Jon Jenkins is manager of IT business process automation at Kautex Textron.

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Wave of automation sweeping Canadian retailers – Toronto Star

Posted: at 9:07 pm

A man operates a forklift at the Sobeys Vaughan Retail Support Centre, equipped with robotics for automation in Vaughan, Ont., on Monday. ( Mark Blinch / The Canadian Press )

By Linda NguyenThe Canadian Press

Thu., June 15, 2017

Back in 2009, Sobeys found itself at a crossroads.

Labour costs were rising, employee productivity was waning and the grocer knew that it had to keep building bigger distribution centres to accommodate the growing number of items being sold in its supermarkets.

So instead of building out and hiring more workers, the national grocery chain built up and replaced many employees with robots.

The combination of labour costs going up and SKUs (stock keeping units) being on the rise kind of forced us to start thinking outside the box and try to find a technology to help us resolve those issues, said Eric Seguin, senior vice-president of distribution and logistics for Sobeys, during a tour this week at the companys largest warehouse in Vaughan, Ont.

Sobeys is one of a small number of Canadian retailers that have embraced robotics technology. Others have been reluctant to follow suit, experts say, due to a lack of investment, a lack of access to the technology and for a long time, a lack of competition.

Today, Sobeys operates four robotics distribution centres: two facilities north of Toronto spanning 750,000 square feet, another in Montreal and one in Calgary that opened earlier this month.

Unlike its 21 traditional warehouses, the mostly-automated centres rely on robotics instead of workers to pull items off the shelves and pack them onto pallets to ship to its 1,500-plus grocery stores.

The robots, which whiz up and down rows of stacked products piled up to 75 feet high for 20 hours a day, have resulted in reduced employee costs and quicker and more accurate deliveries, Sobeys says. Its also allowed the Stellarton, N.S.-based grocer to double the amount of items that can be stored.

One robot does the work of four employees, Seguin said.

The robots dont get tired, Seguin said.

They always show up the morning after the Stanley Cup final. They are always there the morning after the Super Bowl. It doesnt matter if its 35 (Celsius) and a beautiful weekend.

The company has spent between $100 million to $150 million on each of its robotics facilities. Seguin says retailers, especially those in the grocery industry, have been slow to adapt due to the high upfront investment costs.

But that attitude is changing and fast, says retail consultant Doug Stephens.

Retail in this country has enjoyed for many decades a bit of a dearth of competition, which is coming to an end now, said Stephens, who recently wrote a book called Re-Engineering Retail.

With the influx of U.S. players in the last decade and certainly with the presence and impact of Amazon, Canadian retailers are really having to awaken to the idea that if we dont adapt and change and compete were going to be in big trouble.

Behemoth multinational corporations like Amazon and Walmart have raised the stakes for Canadian retailers, offering lower prices, as well as quick and often free delivery or pickup services.

Last year, Canadas oldest retailer, Hudsons Bay Company, said it was spending more than $60 million in robotic upgrades to its 725,000-square-foot Toronto distribution centre. Online orders that wouldve taken up to 2 hours to locate and pack manually are being shipped out of the warehouse and onto a truck within 15 minutes.

Were really just on the cusp of the capabilities of these technologies, said Stephens.

While manual labour jobs are being lost in retail, the types of positions that survive the wave of automation will evolve and likely be more focused on loyalty and analytics, says Marty Weintraub, a partner in retail at consulting firm Deloitte.

Robots can be much cheaper to implement and execute, and they dont come with some of the challenges that humans would face such as making errors or having poor judgment, he said.

But technology cannot replace certain skills that computers cant do today, like jobs that require problem solving, intuition, the art of persuasion and creativity.

According to documents obtained by The Canadian Press in March, federal government officials were warned that the Canadian economy could lose between 1.5 million and 7.5 million jobs in the next 10 to 15 years due to automation.

In a report, Sunil Johal of the Mowat Centre at the University of Toronto estimates that the retail sector employs about two million people and between 92 per cent to 97 per cent of those who work in sales or as cashiers are at risk of losing their jobs.

Were just scratching the surface of how technology can affect the retail sector, said Johal. Thats a cause of concern.

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Why automation driven by cloud technologies is becoming more critical for organisations – Cloud Tech

Posted: at 9:07 pm

More than half of respondents in a survey carried out by managed cloud provider 2nd Watch say at least half of their deployment pipelines are automated, with 63% saying they can deploy new applications in less than six weeks.

The study, which garnered responses from more than 1,000 participants from US companies with at least 1,000 employees, found that companies embracing cloud automation were able to deploy new applications and workloads faster and more frequently.

Alongside the almost two thirds who said deploying new applications took less than six weeks, 44% said deploying new code to production took a day or less, while 54% say they are deploying new code changes at least once a week. A similar number (55%) say they are measuring application quality by testing everything, while two thirds argue at least half of all their quality assessments, such as lint and unit tests, are also automated.

The survey results reiterate what were hearing from clients and prospects: automation, driven by cloud technologies, is critical to the rapid delivery of new workloads and applications, said Jeff Aden, 2nd Watch co-founder. Companies are automating everything from artifact creation to deployment pipelines and process, which includes metrics, documentation and data.

The result is faster time to market for new applications, and less application downtime.

Earlier this month, a report from Puppet found particular discrepancies between higher and lower performing organisations when it came to automation. Top performing firms automated 72% of all configuration management processes on average, while lower ranked companies spent almost half (46%) of their time on manual configuration.

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Americans split on impact of automation in the workplace – Robotics and Automation News (press release) (registration)

Posted: at 9:07 pm

Automation in the workplace is a polarizing issue for Americans, according to the results of a new American Staffing Association Workforce Monitor survey conducted online by Harris Poll.

About equal percentages of respondents say that automation for example, robots or artificial intelligence will be a good or a bad thing for the future world of work.

Specifically, 34 per cent of Americans say automation will be a positive development for the workforce in the next 10 years or morecompared with 31% who say it will be negative. A plurality (35 per cent) are neutral on the matter or just dont know.

However, more than four in five Americans think that increased automation will revolutionize work (83 per cent)and that this transformation is inevitable (82 per cent).

A substantial majority think that automation will fundamentally change the quantity (79 per cent) and types (68 per cent) of jobs available in the US. Seven in 10 (72 per cent) say its increased use will lead to higher unemployment.

But most Americans are in denial that automation will ever affect their work life. Nearly three quarters (73 per cent) do not believe that their work can be easily replaced by robots or artificial intelligence, and 85 per cent agree that the human factor outweighs any benefits from mechanizing their job.

Nine in 10 (90 per cent) say that there are some tasks that automation will never be able to take over from humans.

Richard Wahlquist, ASA president and chief executive officer, says: Automation is revolutionizing the who, what, where, and how people will work in the future.

The ASA Workforce Monitor found that nearly nine out of 10 (87 per cent) Americans believe that to succeed in this new world of work, additional training will be needed.

Harris Poll conducted the survey online within the US on behalf of ASA March 7-9, 2017, among a total of 2,133 US adults age 18 and older.

Results were weighted on age, education, race/ethnicity, household income, and geographic region where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the US population.

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21st Century Automation: Policy Responses – Niskanen Center (press release) (blog)

Posted: at 7:13 am

June 14, 2017 by Ryan Hagemann and Nicholas Ciuffo

Previously, we discussed the historical tensions inherent in the First Industrial Revolution, and how the rapid pace of technological change contributed to emerging social tensions. In the short-term, the growing pains were significant, as more and more people began moving to cities and experienced firsthand the costs associated with the advent of a more industrialized economy. However, there were also long-term costs that resulted from the inaction of early 19th century policymakersspecifically, the rise of ideologies that eroded peoples trust and confidence in liberal institutions. The Niskanen Centers Will Wilkinson expressed this sentiment well in a post-election blog on the need to revitalize liberalism:

Liberal norms and institutions are under constant corrosive pressure from natural, deep-seated illiberal tendencies that weve only recently managed to suppress and/or harness at all. These latent atavistic instincts cannot be effectively neutralized in general or in advance because they constantly find expression in novel, unpredictably powerful guises as our culture, economy, and technology evolves.

As our technology evolves, it is inevitable we will continue to encounter corrosive pressure from illiberal tendencies that speak to peoples fears, rather than their aspirations. While we cannot possibly prepare for all future scenarios that might degrade our institutions, there are a number of issues that we can begin addressing that may yet help ensure we avoid the same pitfalls experienced during the First Industrial Revolution.

The Issues the Robots Cant Solve

There are a number of tangential policy areas that will have an impact on how quickly and easily people adapt to the changing technological landscape. Some, like ensuring a robust social safety net and education reform, have been focal points of attention. Others, like the cost of housing, have largely flown under the radar. All of them, however, are important to the broader conversation of automation and the future of work.

Reforming Housing Policies

Impediments to economic growth arent solely tethered to dwindling returns from productivity gains. For example, some believe that restrictions on the supply of housing in dense urban centers where total factor productivity is high (in particular, Silicon Valley) has led to significantly lowered aggregate economic growth. Urban enclaves on the coasts are a significant source of economic activity. By some estimates, U.S. cities with populations exceeding 150,000 contribute to almost 85 percent of GDP. These are the areas with the most potential for high-income earnings, but high costs of living can have a significant deterrence effect for citizens seeking to capitalize on those opportunities. As Greg Ferenstein recently noted:

In one of the most productive cities in America, San Francisco, average rent has rocketed past $3,500 a month, mostly because anti-skyscraper residents have made it illegal to build apartments in half of the city. Getting a permit to build a tall apartment complex can take upwards of 10 years because neighborhood groups have broad regulatory authority to delay construction.

As a result, talented engineers are fleeing the city, and their dreams for creating the next Facebook or Google are going with them. Not everyone needs to live in San Francisco, but its much easier to build high-growth companies in places with a dense concentration of talent. The fewer people who can afford to live in big cities, the less innovative America will be.

If fewer people can afford to take advantage of the network effects in major metropolitan areas, their ability to take advantage of better paying jobs is at risk. Every lost opportunity for an individual is also a potential loss for society, with fewer people participating in, and contributing to, the innovation economy. Diminished potential for innovation could stymie economic growth, while exacerbating social tensions. Much of the modern housing issue in American cities echoes those of early 19th century Britain. As Robert C. Allen wrote in a 2007 Oxford University working paper:

As British cities expanded, growing labour demanded bid up the price of housing and land, and much of the income gain was transferred to urban landowners. Faced with a rising cost of housing, workers responded by reducing their consumption: the result was overcrowding. The were limits as to how far this process could be pushed, and those limitations meant that rising rents translated into a rising share of income spent on housing.

According to a report published by the Californias Legislative Analysts Office (LAO), a major roadblock to meeting housing demands in Californias most sought-after coastal neighborhoods (Los Angeles, Oakland, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, and Santa AnaAnaheim) has to do with resistance from existing residents. Fear of negative impacts on their home values combined with perceived negative complications related to increased development contribute to hostile attitudes towards developing land for residential purposesthe Not In My Backyard, or NIMBY, effect.

So-called growth control policies also play a role in limiting the development of housing in Californias coastal communities. According to the same LAO report, two-thirds of California cities have growth control policies. Policies such as limiting the number of homes built in a given year or limiting the height of buildings, place a physical limitation on the ability of developers to meet the demand for housing in these highly sought after regions.

Policy reform in this space will be complicated due to the hyperlocal nature of housing policy. The power to reform restrictive zoning laws is often in the hands of those who directly benefit from manipulating the housing supply through such mechanisms. Implementing housing policy reforms at the state level may decouple zoning regulations from local politics aimed at restricting housing supply.

New Approaches to Education

Regardless of how the future of work unfolds, investing in Americas talent today will be essential to reaping the economic benefits of the world of tomorrow. Pursuing policies that incentivize STEM education programs in primary, secondary, and postsecondary institutions will be essential in maintaining an innovative workforce that will be equipped to deal with rapid technological change. Perhaps more importantly, however, a reassessment of the role of certified education in society is needed. That means focusing on different means of accrediting the workforce, outside of the traditional four year university.

Baileys article cites an excellent report by Michael Mandel and Bret Swanson. It correctly identifies the potential of the information technology and digital sectors to radically transform physical industries in the coming years. They argue that it is necessary to upgrade our education and workforce development systems to dramatically expand the number of Americans who can help create, and thrive in, the digitally-enabled economy. Reducing the cost of higher education while boosting collaboration between higher education and industry leaders and improving the relevance of curricula are also cited as important public policy goals. Promoting more skills-based certification and training programs, especially through apprenticeships and trade schools, are necessary to ensuring workers are better prepared (and at a cheaper cost) for the emerging jobs in the digital economy.

Consider Germany, where according to The Wall Street Journal, roughly half of high-school graduates opt for high-octane apprenticeships rather than college degrees. Through a system of collaboration between employers, educators, and the federal government, students in Germany are afforded the option of developing in-demand skills via an apprenticeship arrangement with an employer. Apprentices participate in a dual-training program where they split their time between on-site training and in-classroom instruction. Funding for this scheme is low-cost to the state. Federal agencies provide public funds for the development and promotion of apprenticeship schemes, whereas the majority of the costs involved with training and educating an apprentice is the responsibility of the employer.

Heeding these calls can help fundamentally alter the future of work for future generations. Of more immediate concern, however, is the largest growing sector of the active labor market: older workers. According to a report produced by the New America Foundation in partnership with Bloomberg, one quarter of the workforce will be 55 or older by 2024.

Investments in opportunities for lifelong-learning programs will be necessary to enable those most at risk of being displaced by automation, thus allowing the older generation to participate in a new economy shaped by technological advancement. Incentivizing lifelong education for this at-risk population through income tax credits or grants will be necessary to inspire and motivate those who might otherwise be reluctant, unwilling, or unable to adapt to the changing nature of work.

Traditional education policy has focused on delivering resources for young students to obtain an equitable education regardless of where they live or their economic background. This same line of thinking will need to be adapted to provide an equitable education regardless of age. Providing resources for local community colleges and universities to offer new and innovative curricula, such as online MOOCs or apprenticeship learning, will provide diverse and affordable pathways for older workers to pursue new opportunities.

Social Safety Net Provisions

Although, the United States has fairly robust social welfare programs, they can certainly be improved. A report published by the Executive Office of the White House points out that domestic spending on active labor market programs amounts to just 0.1 percent of GDP. The Organization of Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) average, by contrast, is 0.6 percent. Some tout the need for retraining programs or incentivizing employers to invest in their workforce through a Worker Training Tax Credit.

While training or retraining our workforce to be productive in an economy powered by automation is a possible solution, there is potential to leave out segments of the population that are educationally disadvantaged. It is important to consider policies that will enable this segment of the population to transition into new work or to better plan for leaving the workforce.

In an interview with the MIT Technology Review, economic historian Joel Mokyr notes that in the modern capitalist system your occupation is your identity. Policies should help enable Americans to maintain their ability to function as productive members of society during their transition from low-skill labor to new jobs powered by automation. This can be achieved by improving the social insurance system.

One such proposal, recently floated by Rep. Ro Khanna, is to expand the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). The Niskanen Centers Samuel Hammond has written in support of Rep. Khannas proposal, arguing that:

major disruptions to work on the horizon, with more and more routine jobs being automated by robots and artificial intelligence. The result will not be a lack of jobs, but rather a challenging period of transition to new jobs that leverage uniquely human capabilities like caring and emotional intelligence.

As Hammond has previously noted, expanding the EITC, in contrast to worker retraining programs like Trade Adjustment Assistance, can be a powerful incentive mechanism for both workers and firms to aggressively seek each other out. Mitigating the potential negative effects of automation on Americas labor force will require a thoughtful combination of expanding or augmenting current social nets while being open to policies that will benefit older workers participating in the workforce.

Conclusion

Robots probably arent going to eat all the jobs; at least not anytime soon.

Nonetheless, it is incumbent upon policymakers and technology analysts to start grappling with the potential outcomes of a more automated society. Arguing for doing nothing simply because the gains from automation could outweigh the potential costs ignores the inherent uncertainty of future events. If the labor displacement effects from automation are far greater than we anticipate, the unraveling of institutional trust could lead to unintended consequences that actually forestall future progress, while producing greater market uncertainty.

A dynamic economy that embraces innovation is, on net, a good thing. We shouldnt forestall a future of limitless possibilities for the contentment of the present. But that isnt an excuse for ignoring the many practical hurdles that exist between the present and that future. When Bailey and others argue that their opponents lack of imagination blinds them to how people will use technology to conjure millions of occupations now undreamt of, it fails to acknowledge those roadblocks that currently exist, and which may be erected in the future.

None of this is to suggest we should back off innovation and digitization of the economy. Quite the opposite: if anything, we should aim for more innovation and digitization of the economy. What we cannot do, however, is simply hope for the best. We need to focus on how best to mitigate the risks associated with automation of the economy, and soon.

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Los Angeles Turns to Automation to Streamline HR – Government Technology

Posted: at 7:13 am

Los Angeles Countys Human Resources Department serves 108,000 employees.

About six years ago, we embarked on a transformative effort with a simple goal: Automate all things HR, Human Resources CIO Murtaza Masood told Techwire.

The department wanted to automate as many activities as possible and enable employees to handle many of their own activities, even on Web-based and mobile apps.

The entire effort is centered on a CGI Advantage enterprise resource planning system.

We tie the processes and interactions together and gain insights into where the workloads are coming from, where the growth of certain types of transactions and processes are coming from, and then look behind the curtain and make managerial decisions based on that, Masood said.

Adobe Eforms is used for employees daily HR transactions, while Documentum is our business process engine, Masood said.

The department spends about $14 million a year on IT, and about 100 employees in HR and the Department of Internal Services work on the project daily.

More recently, the county has launched an application withNeogovto create a cohesive applicant tracking system that unifies applications, testing and recruitment processes. The program was guided by the department to maintain compliance standards.

We partnered with them so they enhanced their product to meet our needs, Masood said. Being our size and being that we are governed by a very specific set of civil service rules, we felt that no product on the market met our needs to enable our compliance.

The unified retention and recruitment system went live in May and has already won two awards.

The system includes communication methods to schedule interviews and exams. It also includes a public-facing appeals site, where applicants can lodge complaints and seek corrections if they feel unfairly treated.

Next, the county hopes to digitize all employee records, making them transferable across all departments.

This article was originally published on Techwire.

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SoftWear Automation raises $4.5 million to build robots that sew … – TechCrunch

Posted: at 7:13 am


TechCrunch
SoftWear Automation raises $4.5 million to build robots that sew ...
TechCrunch
Remember the good old days when cartoon robot toys were all the rage? Maybe you were a Transformers kid or maybe you were into Microbots. And, if you ...
SoftWear Automation Infused With $4.5 Million Investment WWDWWD

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Tech Mahindra reskilling employees amid automation – Economic Times

Posted: at 7:13 am

BENGALURU: Tech Mahindra has undertaken a slew of measures to reposition itself as a digital transformation company amid continuous downsizing by IT organisations in India.

The IT services giant is reskilling employees through a three-tier internal training programme structure and collaboration with online education companies such as EdCast, Pluralsight and Coursera, among others.

Atul Kunwar, chief technology officer, Tech Mahindra told ET that some 90,000 of their global IT staff are being trained internally for digital transformation courses."We have around 30 people in the reskilling department whose purpose is to look for new courses. We push our staff for courses keeping in mind the direction the industry is going."

Kunwar felt automation is inevitable in repetitive jobs and reskilling is a priority. "Today, education has to be self-driven and the organisation's role is to provide access. Areas such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), data analytics, Internet of Things and machine learning (exist), wherein the current workforce can train themselves in a slew of courses that are out there for future prospects."

The company is open to increasing investment in the internal startup programme, though Kunwar pointed out that a breakthrough application is still awaited. ET had reported that Jagdish Mitra, who heads the Growthfactories initiative for startups, said they have reached out to venture capital firms and equity players to get external fun ding for three startups that had been created internally.

Tech Mahindra is also in the process of expanding the BPO and telecom operations in Ireland. "Ireland is a very important destination for us. We plan to expand research and development in BPO and telecom area. We have even set up a new 50-member telecom technology centre in Dublin and shall scale that up too," said Kunwar.

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Tech Mahindra reskilling employees amid automation - Economic Times

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3 Ways Automation Can Ease Holiday Order Fulfillment – Multichannel Merchant (blog)

Posted: at 7:12 am

The holiday shopping season is right around the corner, and warehouses and distribution centers will soon be bustling to get online orders out the door. And if past Black Friday sales figures are any indication, holiday order fulfillment numbers could reach an all-time high this year.

According to data from Adobe Digital Insights, Black Friday 2016 set a record $3.34 billion in online sales, a 21.6% increase over 2015. As more orders come into the warehouse, the burden of fulfillment falls to warehouse management and staff, who must deal with a higher number of SKUs and larger, more complex orders.

The challenges of the holidays take a profound toll on warehouses that employ manual order fulfillment processes, requiring staff to run up and down the aisles to pick products and pack orders for shipment. During times of routine volumes these operations are labor intensive and time consuming, and the strain only multiplies during peak season. For companies struggling to keep up manually with holiday demand, it may be time to consider warehouse automation.

Below are three ways that automation can streamline warehouse operations and ease the burden of holiday order fulfillment:

Companies with automated warehouses typically have both a Warehouse Management System (WMS) and a Warehouse Control System (WCS), often two discrete applications working together to manage inventory and move products. Recently however, more companies are turning to a Warehouse Execution System (WES), which combines the functionality of WMS and WCS into a single application. A WES offers the inventory management, storage optimization and traceability features of a WMS, and the automation control components of a WCS. It provides a real-time view of material handling equipment and personnel to all levels of an organization.

A WES is especially useful for fulfilling large, complex holiday orders with multiple products. In such cases, products within a single order may be dispersed throughout the warehouse, requiring numerous movements to retrieve everything. With control of material handling equipment, such as an automated storage and retrieval system (AS/RS), and oversight over inventory, a WES optimally marries products to customer orders regardless of complexity while minimizing the number of movements needed to fulfill the order. With fewer moves, orders are more accurate and get out the door faster, keeping holiday shoppers happy and the warehouse running smoothly.

Companies typically hire temporary warehouse staff to accommodate the holiday surge in customer orders. With a WES, they dont need to rely as heavily on additional resources because it makes processes more efficient and coordinates automation so fewer associates are needed. This allows companies to extend the workday beyond normal shift hours, lightening the next days workload and getting ahead of manual tasks to meet heavy holiday demand.

By significantly reducing the need for temporary staff, companies save money and resources. The ability to handle everyday activities as well as increased warehouse activity during peak times is a fundamental part of an automated systems design.

Warehouses are not the only players in the supply chain that struggle during the holiday season. Carriers also stretch their resources and put fleets to the test. Theyre not only transporting a higher volume of orders, but meeting tighter delivery timeframes. And as always, the timeliness of deliveries is critical to customer satisfaction.

Warehouses can do their part in accelerating time to delivery through automation. A WES has built-in order planning processes which allow shipment planners and dock coordinators to determine inventory and transportation availability and compare them to order demand. With the speed and accuracy of an automated system, companies can prepare orders in the proper sequence often just hours before a truck arrives. In a more conventional operation, this process needs to be done much further in advance and the space needed to stage these orders increases. Conversely, an automated system reduces the truck dwell time during the order fulfillment process.

The challenges of holiday order fulfillment will not ebb with time but only increase as more people turn to ecommerce to complete their shopping. More than likely, this year will deliver a new record for peak online sales and holiday order fulfillment. Therefore, growing companies with manual warehouses that are worried about keeping up should consider automation in 2017.

Dave Williams is Director of Software and Solutions Delivery for Westfalia Technologies

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