Category Archives: Automation

PUNE, India, Oct. 6, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- A New Era in Innovation: Warehouse automation market size is set to witness tremendous growth with a 14.6% CAGR during 2020-2027 periods, as per a new report by Brandessence Market Research. The market is set to grow from a valuation of USD 14.73 billion in 2020 to USD 38.23 billion in 2027. The key drivers behind the major growth of the warehouse automation market size are growing efficacy of robotics, automation, and other supporting technology like inventory management systems. Furthermore, the warehouse automation trends have also led to strong cost-effective and productivity majors with technological advancements.

The warehouse automation market is a fragmented competitive landscape. The market remains open to entry of new players despite high initial investments. Growing interest in technologies like robotics, automation, and AI offer robust opportunities for cross-industry collaborations, and mergers. Some key players in the warehouse automation market are Lucus Robotics, Toyota Industries, KUKA AG, Geekplus, Omron Corporation, and ABB Ltd.

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Impact of E-commerce on the Warehouse Automation Market

According to the United Nation Conference on Trade and Development, the total e-commerce sales reached USD25.6 trillion in 2018. This was a significant 8% rise from 2017. Furthermore, the UNCTAD also reported that B2B, and B2C sales in the same year amounted to 30% of the global GDP in the same year. This is a major boost for players in the warehouse automation market. E-commerce has necessitated speediest operations, and global delivery system. Such efficiency, and connectivity mandates the use of digitalization, automation, and a global connectivity. Furthermore, B2C commerce, a key driver of global e-commerce witnessed a further increase of 7.05 to rise to $404 billion by 2018. The growing demand for e-commerce, decreasing costs of cross-border shipments, and technological advancements in automation will drive robust growth for players in the warehouse automation market.

Key Trends in the Warehouse Automation Market

According to a World Bank report, Food services displayed a 73% potential for automation in 2020, while manufacturing shows 59%, Agriculture 57%, Information technology 35%, and professional services show 34% potential. Most industries including food services, manufacturing are currently operating below par capacity in comparison to their potential. This is likely to change soon. World Bank report also highlighted the acceleration of automation due to the covid-19 pandemic. The pandemic accelerated the growth of the warehouse automation as norms like social distancing, infectious nature of the disease, and large risk of potential fatalities necessitated an instant change for companies. Furthermore, advanced robots today are capable of serving various business functions including packing, picking, transporting, inspection, sorting, and security. The increasing demand for automation and growing potential due to advancements in AI, and Robotics remain key drivers of acceleration in the warehouse automation market.

3D Printing to Open New Opportunities in the Warehouse Automation Market

3D printing is quickly becoming the new battlefield of innovation in key sectors like healthcare. The 3D printing technology promises to replace human organs with artificial ones for patient care, storage, and research. In the case of organs like kidneys, wait times can be as long as a year. Furthermore, despite the long wait times, these organs remain out of reach for most due to heavy costs associated. 3D printing can not only make the organ transfer a reality but also allow pharmacies, hospitals, research facilities and warehouses to store the organs safely. This transformation is already taking place in the case of caskets for fractures, dental models, tissues, surgical tools, and more. 3D printing will also increase in-house warehousing demand for many facilities. Furthermore, due to delicate and technical nature of its medical application, high-end automation, and storage will be essential component of 3D printing at most large healthcare facilities. Small hospitals or clinics will also require distribution services including automated warehouse to cut down times for medical products like caskets, dental modes, and surgical instruments.

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Warehouse automation statistics: An Overview

Annual shipments for robots, and automatic guided vehicles or AGVs are expected to reach 620,000 in 2021. This stood at a modest figure of 40,000 in 2016. The numbers of shipments will likely grow at robust speed, as 40% companies worldwide are expected to invest in shuttle systems in warehouse processes. The likes of Amazon have offered major incentives, and a live case study for millions of warehouse-reliant businesses to automate. Amazon, known for its large workforce, and terrific speeds of delivery has achieved tremendous success with warehousing in recent years. This has resulted in some unforeseen challenges like collision of robots with its workers in an unfortunate incident. However, the e-commerce giant has also opened self-checkout stores in major cities, with complete automation driving inventory refills, warehousing, payment systems, and other automated advancements.

On September 21st, 2021; Locus Robotics Acquired Fellow Warehouse AutomationCompany Waypoint Robotics

Key Developments in the Warehouse AutomationMarket

The warehouse automation companies continue to innovate to make supply chains, and logistics an integral instrument for global e-commerce. As the cost of transport continue to fall, the origin of manufacturing remains largely relevant for most products. Hence, we will witness continued focus on increasing transparency, automation in supply chains.

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At 14.6% CAGR, Warehouse Automation Market is Projected to Reach USD 38.23 Bn by 2027, Says Brandessence Market Research - PRNewswire

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mindbreeze, a leading provider of appliances and cloud services in the field of information insight, is pleased to launch the latest insight application. Mindbreeze InSpire for Bid Automation helps organizations use their knowledge and answer tenders with the highest quality to win additional customers.

Winning long-term contracts is crucial in stabilizing the cash flow of your business and outperform your market segment. A tender is a multi-step process that includes research, organization, and compliance. Mindbreeze InSpire for Bid Automation helps significantly with the most intense parts of the tender process ("plan & prepare" and "writing your tender response"), saving you valuable resources and putting you in the best position to submit a winning bid.

Requests for Proposals and Requests for Information (RFPs and RFIs) come with many questions that require intelligence from various departments. Mindbreeze InSpire for Bid Automation allows one to answer questions from the questionnaire fully automatic by receiving inline responses generated from the connected enterprise data. It displays all documents related to the specific area of interest. Moreover, Mindbreeze InSpire provides a clear overview of your ongoing bids, priority levels, and relevant key facts of intelligence surrounding your requests. The 360-degree view will give you insights into your competitors and a complete timeline of where you are in the process.

"Mindbreeze is changing the way organizations answer tenders and win with best bids by transforming the bid management process by applying AI at its best. Our customers select Mindbreeze when they are looking for market-leading enterprise innovations, and we try to live up to this claim every day," states Daniel Fallmann, founder and CEO of Mindbreeze.

For more information regarding our Bid Management application: Bid Automation with Mindbreeze InSpire

About Mindbreeze

Mindbreeze is a leading international provider of appliances and cloud services for enterprise search, applied artificial intelligence, and knowledge management. The global partner network enables customer support worldwide, independent of time zones.

For more information, please visit http://www.mindbreeze.com or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter @Mindbreeze.

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Mindbreeze Launches AI for Bid Automation - Business Wire

TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SoftwareReviews, a division of IT research and advisory firm Info-Tech Research Group, has published its 2021 Robotic Process Automation Data Quadrant Awards, naming three vendors as gold medalists. The following vendors are winners according to the feedback provided by their end-users via SoftwareReviews comprehensive online survey:

Vendors are rated on product features, vendor capabilities, and the relationship with their software partner.

What makes the SoftwareReviews Data Quadrant different?

The study involves gathering intelligence on user satisfaction with both product features and the experience with the vendor. Aggregated emotional response ratings are included in the areas of service, negotiation, product impact, conflict resolution, and strategy and innovation to create a powerful indicator of overall user feeling toward the vendor and its product all from the software users point of view. SoftwareReviews calls this insight the Net Emotional Footprint.

With a Net Emotional Footprint of +97, UiPath ranked strongly for role-based access. Automate from HelpSystems received a Net Emotional Footprint of +85 and exceeded user expectations in providing quality implementation strategy and delivery. Automation Anywhere received a Net Emotional Footprint of +93 with a high score for in-action logging.

Robotic Process Automation users were most satisfied with vendors central deployment capabilities. However, users would be happy to see changes and improvements in the vendors real-time debugging solutions.

In-depth product evaluation reports are available at http://www.softwarereviews.com

About SoftwareReviews Data Quadrant Awards and Software Reports:

SoftwareReviews Data Quadrant Awards recognize outstanding vendors in the technology marketplace as evaluated by their users annually. Top vendors in a software category are eligible to receive Data Quadrant Gold Medals, provided their net-promoter scores meet the threshold for sufficiently high user satisfaction across four areas of evaluation: vendor capabilities, product features, likeliness to recommend, and vendor experience.

About SoftwareReviews:

SoftwareReviews is a division of Info-Tech Research Group, an IT research and advisory firm established in 1997. Backed by two decades of IT research and advisory experience, SoftwareReviews is a leading source of expertise and insight into the enterprise software landscape and client-vendor relationships. By collecting real data from IT and business professionals, the SoftwareReviews methodology produces detailed and authentic insights into the experience of evaluating and purchasing enterprise software.

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Best Robotic Process Automation Software Revealed by Users Through SoftwareReviews - Business Wire

What's This? Associations Now Brand Connection provides opportunities for advertisers to connect with the Associations Now audience. All content is paid for by the advertiser. The Associations Now editorial staff is not involved in creating this content.

This week marks the start of Major League Baseballs playoff season. My favorite team didnt make the cut, but Ill still watch the games, and during the slow parts, Ill wonder about a question the game is increasingly inspiring: Can we automate the CEOs job out of existence?

Ive been thinking about CEOs in a baseball context because of so-called robot umpiresrapidly evolving technology that uses sensors and algorithms to call balls and strikes, presumably with more accuracy than human umpires. A recent article in The New Yorker explored how minor-league clubs are testing the idea in preparation for its use in the majors. Unsurprisingly, the effort is discombobulating many of the sports fans. Hardly a day goes by that I dont wake up and run through the reasons that this is such a terrible idea, a Berkeley philosopher told the magazine. This is part of a movement to use algorithms to take the hard choices of living out of life.

If youre a leader, where much of what you do is make hard choices, the notion of automating your work can be chilling. But its a subject open to discussion: A New Statesman essay earlier this year suggested that automation is destined for the C-suite, thanks both to the iffy track record of rational decision-making among CEOs, and CEOs often-outsize salaries. As the article put it: The difficulty of making genuinely rational strategic decisions, and the cost of the people who do so, are also good reasons to hand this work over to software.

The article is at least a little bit facetiousa prompt to force people to think more about the correlation between success and executive compensationbut theres no question that automation is a growing force in white-collar work. In 2018, I wrote about automations impact on handful of associations as a companion to the ASAE Research Foundations ForesightWorks research initiative; one key data point at the time was the 60 percent of occupations could see a third of their activities automated. Today, up to 60 percent of workers fear automation is putting their jobs at risk, according to a PwC survey.

Does that mean that CEOs will soon be out of a job? Not necessarily. But the change does suggest that the CEOs role has to evolve out of its more button-pushing elements; the array of approvals, rote (read: inauthentic) communications, and data-driven decisions that might be handled more efficiently by other means. In its place, according to an article last week in the business magazine Raconteur, team-building and culture-building skills will increasingly come to the fore.

Diversifying skill sets and focusing on so-called soft skills that are harder to automate, like communication and teamwork, are likely to be good bets, IT firm CEO Alexa Greaves told the publication.

Similarly, UiPath CEO Daniel Dines recently told Fortune that top-tier workers will need to enhance their skills to emphasize more human elements of the job. If you look at most of the knowledge-worker jobs, they consist of a series of tasks, some of them are highly repetitive in nature, he said. And these are the ones that we can automate. But many others are much more strategic, are about communication or about social skills, empathy, creativity, and strategic thinking.

Think of it this way: Robot umpires are here, but human umpires arent going away. According to The New Yorker story, they still back up the machines calls, settle nerves, call other plays. They preserve the culture of the game, assert their authority. Theyre there for the nuances. People dont need CEOs to make choices that can be done by machine, but they do need leaders. As one player in a robot-ump game put it: With technology, people just want everything to be perfect. Thats not reality. I think perfect would be weird.

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How Smart CEOs Can Respond to Automation - Associations Now

Customer Experience Automation company ActiveCampaign revealed that the secret to its own growth is by helping companies create 1:1 experiences at scale using automation.

More than 80% of consumers admit that they will stop doing business with a company after one negative experience, indicating that customer experience is more important than ever before.

According to ActiveCampaign, most businesses fail in the first five years, and one of the reasons is because it is hard to scale while still providing the bespoke 1:1 experiences that customers expect.

While it is easy to create personalised experiences with a few customers, it is impossible to scale that customer experience without automation or a massive change in headcount, it says.

"That's where ActiveCampaign Customer Experience Automation steps in to automate those experiences across email, chat, SMS, and websites, whether they have 10 or 10 million customers," the company explains.

ActiveCampaign's own growth is fuelled by its dedication to customer success, as evidenced by the industry's only Customer Success Commitment. Further, the company uses its own platform to connect with customers, move deals through sales stages, manage customer relationships, drive unique customer experiences, and ultimately, grow its business.

"ActiveCampaign has seen amazing growth over the last several years thanks to our hundreds of employees who leverage our Customer Experience Automation platform across marketing, sales, and support to drive growth and engage with customers across the entire lifecycle," says Jason VandeBoom, founder and chief executive officer of ActiveCampaign.

"Customer Experience Automation fuels our ability to achieve our mission of helping companies of all sizes grow. All businesses focused on growth should be putting customer experience first," he says.

Evelynne Hatchard, strategy and marketing manager at Happy Families, says, "ActiveCampaign has become an absolutely essential part of our business and has increased our earning potential substantially.

"We couldn't do what we do without them. Having that ability to engage with our clients and members on a 1:1 level is wonderful," she says.

"I also love that I can create everything and control the whole system myself without needing to contact the tech team," Hatchard adds.

Guilherme Laschuk, chief executive officer of Hug.Business, says, "Having the right technology partner in place can make all the difference for a business success.

"Thats why it is imperative for growing companies to find the Formula One of technology solutions that have the best tools that support their unique needs."

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Automation the secret to hyper growth - IT Brief New Zealand

Every company around the globe has felt the effect of the recent crisis in some way or another and companies using outdated AP software have faced the brunt of the crisis. In the past, many companies did not perceive AP Automation as a priority -- but this is changing rapidly. The shift to work-from-home and increased digitization has created a greater need to expedite payments and manage cash flow more effectively. It is vital to any organization's financial health to keep money flowing, especially as so many businesses are facing financial uncertainty.

Unfortunately for firms who are still using manual accounts payable processes, many are struggling with limited visibility and control over their invoices and unrecorded liabilities and cash flow. These problems create a bottleneck in payments and unpredictable cash flow. By automating portions of the AP process, businesses are able to get a clear picture of their cash flow without manually sorting data and creating reports -- all while reducing invoice processing costs.

In recent years, the key challenge for Accounts Payable professionals has been to step away from the manual, paper-based processes and find a way to automate the invoice workflow. As the world becomes increasingly data-driven, organizations must digitize their business processes and automate manual tasks, or they risk falling behind their competition. Pre-crisis, many organizations were still managing to stay afloat while continuing to perform day-to-day operations manually. Once the crisis hit, however, this all began to change.

Now that so many people around the world are working remotely, mobile capabilities have become increasingly important. Organizations must be able to keep their invoice workflows and approvals moving forward regardless of where their employees and business partners are located. This can be difficult for companies that still use legacy software that is not user-friendly and requires significant training for new users.

Ensuring an easy and intuitive user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) is crucial to maintaining good relationships with business partners. Users are looking for the same quality of UI & UX that they see with the consumer apps they use on a daily basis. Increased automation will further simplify the user experience. Additionally, users are looking for solutions that are easy to implement and that require minimal training.

Manual invoice handling is time-consuming, costly and error-prone, and it can often lead to missing invoices and late payments, not to mention the penalties that come along with those late payments. In the post-pandemic world, it is more important than ever for organizations to reduce inefficiencies and make the best use of their workforce.

Companies will begin to re-assess their processes to remove unnecessary steps and streamline operations, as this is pivotal to any organization's financial management. With AP automation, data will flow automatically from clients and systems directly into AP automation software. Manual data entry, and the errors it can often introduce, will be a thing of the past.

As one of the last departments to be digitized, Accounts Payable is ready to reap the efficiency, cost savings, and strategic benefits that others have achieved through automation. Instead of spending time on tedious tasks, AP professionals will be able to shift their focus to more strategic tasks, which will give organizations access to more insights and help organize documents and important materials.

Organizations use AI and ML in many different ways, including for detecting errors and discrepancies. Based on historical data and in-depth traffic analysis, AI-enabled anomaly detection can automatically identify possible deviations or errors in invoice traffic as well as any other problems within the document exchange and immediately alert necessary users to rectify the situation.

Advanced AP automation solutions use optical character recognition (OCR) paired with AI to intelligently fill in missing information into the invoice fields.By using information from similar vendors and invoice formats, the OCR technology builds an invoice pattern for organizations and invoice types. This ensures that invoicing becomes more accurate over time and requires less manual intervention.

AP automation offers a solution to fraud, which can be very costly to businesses. Data collection and analysis tools can help organizations easily identify anomalies and trace them back to the source. The system issues red flags when it suspects fraudulent behaviors and AP Automation professionals are encouraged to dig deeper into the data. Some examples of red flags the system may identify are incomplete invoices, suspicious logins, last-minute changes in banking information, and changes in pricing among particular vendors.

When businesses make the shift to AP automation, they don't just cut AP costs and improve departmental efficiencies; they have the potential to turn their AP team into a strategic and data-driven accounts payable powerhouse.

AP Automation has been shown to accelerate approval cycles, increase employee productivity, reduce late-payment penalties, and lower overall invoice processing costs.

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Comarch S A : The Future of AP Automation in a New World - Marketscreener.com

The Transform Technology Summits start October 13th with Low-Code/No Code: Enabling Enterprise Agility. Register now!

A new report from Omdia, a global technology research firm, sheds light on how robotic process automation (RPA) and intelligent automation (IA) are gathering increasing momentum in the enterprise technology marketplace.

In the report, Fundamentals of RPA and Intelligent Automation 2021, Omdia defines RPA and IA in the following manner. RPA is where software bots mimic humans performing rules-based tasks to improve process efficiencies, quality, and, ultimately, the accuracy of process outcomes. IA incorporates AI technologies such as machine learning and natural language processing (NLP), along with automation solutions such as RPA, to process unstructured data, provide prescriptive analytics, and automate tasks and processes that involve contextual awareness, decision-making, or judgment.

Through an email interview, Cassandra Mooshian, senior analyst for AI and intelligent automation at Omdia, shared her thoughts about a few of the reports many takeaways.

VentureBeat: Could you explain the difference between RPA and IA, and if there are situations where only RPA will do?

Cassandra Mooshian: The major difference is that RPA is not intelligent, so to speak, as it does not include AI. That makes RPA very well-suited for highly repeatable, rules-based tasks that lie within structured data and do not require any decision-making.

Intelligent automation, however, is aimed at tasks that lie within semi-structured and unstructured data that are more variable and require some decision-making, whether thats able to be done by machine learning, computer vision, and/or NLP or by an employee through a human-in-the-loop or human-over-the-loop type process.

For example, with RPA, one could set a predetermined workflow that sees an email with an invoice attached come through and automatically save that invoice in a (predetermined) specified folder. Intelligent automation can take that further by capturing, categorizing/analyzing, and extracting the data within the invoice such that it can be further processed (this is a common Intelligent Document Processing [IDP] use case).

VentureBeat: Why is it important for organizations to have a strong data architecture before they implement RPA/IA?

Mooshian: It is important for companies to have data management, governance, and security policies in place ahead of implementing RPA/IA as these solutions work across multiple enterprise applications. Ensuring roles-based permissions and access is one component and ensuring data integrity is another, among many others. Automating a broken or error-prone process will not fix the process; rather, itll just break faster. For intelligent automation especially, training an ML model on bad data can lead to process errors and inefficiencies.

VentureBeat: Low/no-code IA platforms help democratize automation and scale cost and time saving benefits. Could you explain how?

Mooshian: No-code, drag and drop features are increasingly common among IA platforms which are more business user-friendly. Outside of IT and development teams, not many folks know how to write code. But by being able to drag and drop and/or choose from a list, these platforms can be usable/accessible to more users who can create bots or automate a task. The more automation, the more time and cost savings.

VentureBeat: How do process and task mining and intelligent document processing (IDP) extend the reach and effectiveness of process automation solutions?

Mooshian: Process mining is used to obtain a wide lens over business processes and workflows within a company by examining event logs across systems, including how variable they are and where there are bottlenecks. The less variable the process, the greater its potential candidacy for RPA/IA, though other factors must be considered as well.

Task mining is used to understand how a user is interacting with systems and where there are opportunities for automation. Both of the above help identify automation candidates throughout an organization.

IDP is a use case of IA and is growing in popularity, as there are so many document-intensive processes across organizations that impact many employees. IDP has the potential to help save companies a lot of time, and AI models are getting smarter and smarter, further improving IDP outcomes.

VentureBeat: What is the best industry-specific use case of RPA and IA that you have seen?

Mooshian: This is a tough one because there really isnt one best, and a lot of the use cases are horizontal in that theyre applicable to a business function and apply across industries. Top of mind, Id say financial services has been one of the first-movers regarding uptake of the technology, and there have been many use cases/customer success stories that have and continue to come out of the industry. Some common use cases in financial services are loan processing, mortgage processing, customer onboarding, customer service, and others.

VentureBeat: What are the challenges of weaving RPA and IA into existing IT infrastructures?

Mooshian: Data governance, visibility of shadow deployments (and having guardrails in place for them), and security are all important to set in place ahead of RPA/IA to ensure architectural readiness.

Another challenge is ensuring that the infrastructure is able to handle the increased speed and volume of transactions related to automated processes, whether its their own or someone they do business with. For example, many U.S.- based businesses submitted Payroll Protection Program (PPP) loan applications amid the COVID-19 pandemic, some of whom worked with banks that used RPA/IA to do so. While this sped the process for the banks, it ultimately crashed the system of the Small Business Administration, and they were no longer permitted to use this method to submit applications.

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Robotic process automation and intelligent automation are accelerating, study finds - VentureBeat

To the editor: Automation may be touted as the way to a better future, but really its just another way for businesses to save money by making customers shoulder some of the work. Even though automation is thought to make certain tasks easier, its an absurd and exasperating trend in so many ways. (Airports to passengers: Do it yourself, Opinion, Sept. 27)

Older people with bones as brittle as twigs are expected to become luggage handlers. People who barely know how to use a computer must become their own online travel agents or pay more to interact with a person.

Automated check-out options at grocery stores sometimes outnumber staffed check-out lines, though customer service is part of what customers pay for. With no training or work benefits, for that matter, the customer is expected to suddenly know how to scan fruit with no bar codes.

If you want to reach your doctors office or seek assistance from a business, first you must respond to a robots questions. Often none of the answer options matches what you need and hitting 0" doesnt connect you to a person. Then youre asked to review the experience like a manager.

Getting rid of customer service with genuine human beings is an insult to the customer, and without that human exchange and the employees helpful and sometimes quirky remarks, the experience is hollow and often useless. Its no surprise that customers are getting angrier.

Pam Polivka, Valencia

..

To the editor: Nicholas Goldbergs column points up the amazing technologies that are designed to make airports more efficient. However, some very important subjects are overlooked.

As our population is living longer, a greater portion of travelers is not able to use these amazing machines.

Who helps with lifting heavy bags and checking in when curbside service is no more? What happens when no one is around to help with handicapped needs? Do you need a wheelchair? Good luck.

But at least with fewer workers and lower costs to the airports, Im sure the savings will be passed onto the public. Coffee might even go from $14 to $12 a cup.

Robert Greene, Woodland Hills

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Call automation what it is -- making the customer work - Los Angeles Times

Mitch Johnson, technology manager at Executive Interiors in Fresno, explains that the use of automated machinery in the production shop reduces cost, manual labor, and allows for him to look at all aspects of the business, including on the clerical side, to streamline the work process. Photo by Frank Lopez

New technology usually invokes images of Silicon Valley, mechanical wonders from MIT in Boston or some new consumer electronics for an eager public.

In the Central Valley, local manufacturers have been utilizing new innovations in automation and computer technology to increase production, save time, save money and take away some of the manual stress from workers on the job.

According to a 2017 report from business and government management consulting firm McKinsey Institute, automation can raise productivity growth to 1.4% annually.

Outlier Automation, a family business founded in 2019 in Fresno, is a control systems integrator that provides engineering, programming and design services for manufacturing automation in the Central Valley and across the state.

The engineers at Outlier Automation help clients with the computers that run manufacturing robotics and automated process equipment.

In 2019, founders and married couple Gina Brooks-Zak and Liz Brooks-Zak, who both mastered in engineering in college, chose to start their business in California to be closer to Lizs family in the Central Valley and to start their business in an area rife with opportunities.

The couple left Chicago for Fresno to start their business and expecting a new child to start a family.

Its something that a lot of people recognize that is needed and isnt going away, Gina said about automation. But a lot of manufacturers dont know where to start. Theres a whole plethora of engineering that goes into getting to that point, so we also consult on how to put automation sequences together.

While a computer may run the automation process, Gina said, there has to be a process that can be repeatable and simple enough for a computer. The team at Outliers helps with choosing the right components and software to help companies encounter the least amount of roadblocks as they develop their process.

Outliers usually works on-site with their clients that have some operation or design knowledge. Or it works with partners to design equipment while Outliers focuses on the software and electrical side.

Liz said that while Outliers is the expert in automation technology, they still need feedback from their customers for the automation processes to be applied successfully.

We work in a lot of different types of industries, and we get to see what things are trending in these different spaces. We bring that together and apply the best solutions for clients, regardless of their industry, Liz said.

In the Central Valley, their clients include players in the ag industry and food processing along with a variety of manufacturers.

Because of recent labor shortages across all industries, including in manufacturing, Gina said that there is more interest from manufacturers in using robotics.

A lot of people are looking into how they can use robotics or other types of automation to do what a person was doing before. You can have a one-time capital investment and the robot will do what manual labor people would have done without getting tired, Gina said.

But its not just about replacing a labor force, its also to ensure better quality control with the help of computers and robotics.

Though there is a societal fear that robots will replace humans in countless industries and jobs, Gina said that a lot of the work robots do now are jobs that are very difficult for a person to do for a long time anyway.

A lot of equipment being used in the area is currently 20-30 years old, so a part of the job for the team at Outliers is helping clients troubleshoot their machines, fix them and help clients understand the equipment. This includes training onsite workers.

Im passionate about helping people improve their production from a purely business sense. Its interesting to see how you can improve and make a lot more money for our clients its one of the exciting parts of automation, Gina said.

In 2019, Executive Interiors, a cabinetmaker in Fresno, installed some robotic machinery to save manpower and time.

That year there was a $1 million investment into robotic machinery and more than $60,000 for software costs to be used for cutting wood to build cabinets and to store and organize materials.

Because of the labor crunch, Tim Russell, vice president of Executive Interiors, said that theyve brought in more new equipment to do the work.

Russell was really interested in automation and CNC (Computerized Numerical Control) manufacturing when the technology was first rolling out, and was eager to get in on the trend. Ive always looked at it from a standpoint of being more heavily equipped on the technology side, and have a smaller, more qualified labor pool, Russell said.

While automation started with robotics in the shop machines that cut wood, store and handle of materials so workers wouldnt have to manually move them with forklifts the automation process expanded to other parts of the business.

With more robots handling the materials, there is less chance for workers to injure themselves on the job when handling heavy pieces of wood, keeping costs for health insurance and lost work hours down.

Its almost as if we looked at all the different areas of a company, and slowly found a technical solution for that particular area, said Mitch Johnson, tech manager at Executive Interiors.

Laser and computer technology allows engineers at Executive Interiors to measure a space with a quick scan with extreme accuracy.

Technology and automation are utilized for scheduling, price estimation, the purchasing of materials, processing of orders and any aspect of the business that the team feels could be improved upon.

The team at Executive Interiors is currently trying to implement a new system to help streamline their shipping activity, allowing for the team to track the orders they sent out.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, the company was on pace to have 35% volume increase since 2019, but a lot of projects were shelved in the 2020 due to the pandemic, especially for projects in the medical and restaurant industry.

Johnson said that there is still equipment that isnt online yet, but once it is in, it will help streamline the assembly process for cabinets.

Theres a lot of stuff that goes in to what we do. We are getting bigger customers asking us if we can do more of the auto/CAD side of it so they can implement it in their building models and they want us to accommodate for that. Organization is the biggest thing going on right now and not letting stuff fall through the cracks, Russell said.

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Local manufacturers embrace the benefits of automation - The Business Journal

The use of technology and the desire to contribute to the greater good are driving the CEOs and business leaders of tomorrow. Members of Generation Z are using the latest innovations on the job as they develop their values and philosophies about work. Now is the time for employers to help them reach their potentialand ensure the company thrives, too.

Valerie M. Grubb, principal at New Orleans-based Val Grubb & Associates Ltd., brought some insight into the future of work during her presentation "Workforce 2030: Are You Ready?" at the recent SHRM Annual Conference & Expo 2021 in Las Vegas earlier this month.

She said employees in the next decade would not only rely on more automationbusinesses of all kinds are seeing that every daybut they will also desire meaning in their jobs and a connection to the company's overall success.

Finding PurposeNow and in the Future

Younger generations want purpose in their work now, Grubb said, and will continue to do so.

"Finding purpose is something Gen Z demands, and even more so since the pandemic," she said. "They want to have purpose outside of work but also at work. And many of them are really ambitiousand that's a good thing."

She asked, "How often have you been approached by a younger employee, one who has only worked at the company for about a year, and [heard them] say, 'I want to be CEO.' " And they mean now or in the very near future.

Grubb is both frank and helpful in her response to them: "I say, "That can't happen here. We have one, but I can teach you what it takes to become a good one. Then, maybe you can leave, start your own company and be the CEO."

The key, she added, is "making someone feel important. That's important. Everyone expects this now."

To do that, show the younger employees how they contribute, in their current role, to the company's mission and success. The HR department can do this through well-crafted job descriptions and employee communications.

"Doing this helps the company connect their people to that purpose," she said. "Everyone in the company must have a purpose that helps it to achieve its overall goals."

Here's an example. When Grubb worked for a former employer, the company was cut off from ordering supplies from Staples.

"It turned out, this happened because we weren't paying our invoices," Grubb said. "I went to the accounts payable department and spoke to a manager there who said, 'That's right, we lost our credit with them. The [company's] managers weren't signing off on the invoices to be paid so they've not been paid.'

"I explained to her that as a member of the accounts payable team, [she was] in part responsible for maintaining our public image and reputation. We can't be seen as one that doesn't pay its bills."

Once the accounting manager heard this, Grubb said, she felt empowered enough to go to the company's managers and explain to them the importance of signing off on invoices correctly.

"She realized that she wasn't just another cog in the wheel," Grubb said. "She now knew her purpose. Our credit was restored, and because of her."

Come 2030, AI and Automation Are Front and Center

Jobs are becoming more reliant on artificial intelligence, including blue-collar jobs. In trucking, for example, Grubb said, companies are not necessarily looking for drivers, but instead, for people who understand automation.

A human driver can only work eight or so hours a day. "Soon, we'll have trucks that drive autonomously, so someone needs to be able to manage that and make operations as specific as possible," she said.

Retail stores and fast-food restaurants are also relying on automation. "You might have five or six ordering stations, but only one employee to take care of it all," she said. "The ordering stations run on their own, so there is just one employee needed to be on hand and answer customers' questions or fix glitches."

HR will soon be charged with finding ways to replace workers with automated processes and then hiring people who have strong decision-making skills to make sure the new system is working well.

HR is accustomed to introducing potentially difficult business decisions, such as when they are presenting to senior leadership about why the company should outsource benefits or not have a person working the reception area.

Grubb said HR departments always must be thinking of what's next and then be able to show their executive suite why it is necessary for the company, in order to proactively improve the customer experience and meet the needs of the 2030 workforce.

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Purpose and Automation a Key Part of Workforce 2030 - SHRM