Automation – Making the Most of Skilled Labour

Manufacturing is quite rightly focussed on the design, development and production of products to meet customer orders or be available for sale. To create efficiencies and maintain high quality, manufacturers have installed Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machines for automated milling, laser and plasma cutting, routing hole punching and drilling, to name a few. Manufacturers have also installed industrial robots for arc welding, materials handling, machine tending, painting, assembly, grinding, deburring, polishing, gluing and sealing. While these machines have increased productivity and the quality of the output, there has been little effort placed in eliminating or reducing the hidden waste or inefficiencies that can have a dramatic impact on production.

Many of these inefficiencies, or waste, are created by the incorrect use of labour within a facility. As an example, we at AUTOCON often see manufacturing facilities that have the latest CNC machines, robotic welders and the like, which are highly efficient at completing their processes. However, each machine is reliant on the manual supply of raw material into a production cell, and on completion of the process, manually removing products from the machine and stacking onto a pallet, trolley or bin, for the product to be manually moved to the next process or to product finishing/stores. The movement of small parts is more often than not, moved on a trolley by the machine operator.  Each day production staff spend a great deal of time manually moving raw materials and products from location to location around the facility.

The forecast for skilled labour to support manufacturing operations in Australia is fairly bleak with employers and workers feeling that recruiting and hiring is almost 50% more challenging than it was. 44% of companies are finding it harder now to hire new workers than ever, and 45% of people say it’s harder to get a new job¹. Shortages in stock and in staff as well as continued delays are expected to continue, with some predicting the flow will not be returned to normal for some 3 to 4 years.²

There were 929,900 filled jobs in manufacturing in Q1 2022. The ABS Labour Force Survey identified 831,100 people working in manufacturing in May 2022, down 2.2% from February 2022 and 8.7% year on year respectively. Employment dropped in most manufacturing sectors. Manufacturers indicated difficulty filling entry level positions. Some businesses noted that more staff were requesting casual working arrangements as staff absenteeism remained elevated.³

With the longer-term skills shortage forecast, there seems to be little sense in using skilled labour for low skilled tasks such as the movement of materials and products to and from production cells. The solutions for the release of skilled labour from these tasks seems to be in hiring unskilled labour, or through the use of automation.

• Unskilled labour can be a quick and easy solution for the short term however, there has traditionally been a high turnover of these operators as their work is boring, mundane and involves a great deal of manual operation. A high turnover of these operators places further strain on business as they need to continually recruit, induct and train new staff. Add to this the reduction in productivity and the cost to replace each operator (up to 50% of the annual wage) and the necessary work arounds when operators are absent, these are issues best avoided.
• Automation presents a unique opportunity to perform manual movement tasks by machines and release valuable skilled labour to perform essential and value adding work.

If you see operators in your business performing these tasks, then there is an opportunity to automate the process and reduce the manual handling effort in the business: