Robots are taking over

Press, 14 May 1982, Page 14

Robots are taking over

Unemployment is already a major problem in New Zealand; and all reports suggest that .it will get worse before it gets better. Overseas, the effects of the economic “i, recession have been exacerbated by the impact on unemployment of the silicon chip, and robots.

The threat of the chip has been longer established and better documented, but the extent of the threat from robots is only just beginning to dawn on those in the workforce. There are no world-wide figures of the number of robots employed in industry or how many human jobs they have replaced. Indeed, there is s no consensus on exactly what a robot is. But, essentially, an industrial robot is a machine that is programmed to work by itself and to replace a machine that needed a human to work it.

The magnitude of the threat to employment posed by robots can be seen in the Volkswagen plant in Hanover, West Germany. There are now 450 robots at the plant and each has replaced four workers — and does the job more quickly, accurately, and cheaply. By the end of this year, Volkswagen expects to be using 1200 robots, replacing nearly 5000 members of its workforce.

These are “third generation” robots with one or more arms and sensors to “see.” They carry out welding, injection moulding, load-/

ing, and unloading, and .even assemble cars. Management and unions tend to see the impact of robots rather differently. Volkswagen" management says that for every four jobs a robot replaces, it creates one job with higher pay and needing higher qualifications. The . unions view robots as pushing the workforce out of employment that uses hightechnology machines.

When a worker has to change jobs to another one within the firm, he receives the same wages, and even higher ones if the worker hasthe necessary technical qualifications. But for most workers the new job carries no sense of accomplishment, which leaves them upset even if they still get the same wages. This attitude is then criticised by the management as being “inflexible, reluctant to accept change, and unwilling to learn new skills.”

At the end of the Volkswagen welding Hne (welding is still mainly a human activity) body parts are loaded on to the wagons of the D.T.S. (driverless .transport system). These D.T.S. wagons'roll through the production departments unceasingly, as if steered by invisible men. Accidents cannot occur because of the accurate planning of the transport movements. Robots have immense advantages for management over human labour. Noise, dust, heat, and cold mean

nothing to them. They do not suffer from the monotony of their work. They are seldom “ill” and they never strike for more pay or better conditions. They carry out precision work more accurately than either the men who designed and programmed them or those who service them. This Volkswagen plant builds utility vehicles. Bodybuilding work that used to employ hundreds now employs only 16 humans per

shift. Even they are at risk, because the output of the robots is so superior. Far stronger adhesive glues can be used by robots because the fumes do not give robots headaches or implant can-cer-building cells. Volkswagon views robots as an economic necessity, for their ability to reduce costs. If a part wears out. it is simply replaced. In earlier years, about 80 per cent of

the production facilities had to be modified when a new model was introduced; today, 10 per cent is enough. One in four of the men replaced by a robot is offered new and better work The other three can be transferred if — as with Volkswagen — considerable increases in production can be achieved.

But what happens when demands stagnate or even decrease? Theriabour market situation, the growing number of unemployed, a worldwide recession, and inflation worry everyone. Workers tend to acknowledge the merits of the robots, but they worry about becoming superfluous, or at least having diminished responsibility under a “robot foreman" who cannot understand the worker’s personal problems. There are powerful lessons for the New Zealand workforce in the Volkswagen experience. New Zealand's automobile assembly industry is sick now, and would seem to be a prime candidate for robots in the near future. This will not only have a devastating effect on levels of unemployment in New Zealand, but even more on the economies of the small Pacific Island nations to the north who supply such a large proportion of the workforce in the car assembly industry.

By

OLIVER RIDDELL