Can Automation Improve Company Efficiency?
Automation uses technology to perform tasks with little or no human input. It gives people more time to focus on other jobs, helps catch errors, and manages complex systems. It also allows technology to go where people can’t, doing dangerous or monotonous work easily. Employees working in an automation-integrated workplace are often happier and more efficient. Here’s how it helps.
Types
Automation comes in the form of many technologies that require little human intervention. Some of these include:
- Computerization
- Mechanization
- Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Robotics
These types of technology have become a part of daily life and have improved many aspects of the workplace. Almost every industry now uses some form of automation. The following are a few notable ways it promotes employee efficiency.
Notable Ways Automation Promotes Employee Efficiency
1. Reducing Physical Labor
Employees can get tired or injured while performing manual jobs, but automatic machinery can do repetitive, dangerous tasks in less-than-ideal conditions. For example, driverless tractors can plow and seed a field in scorching hot temperatures. Robots can inspect potentially unstable bridges and drones fly over wildfires to identify the safest areas for firefighters to come in.
Machinery can also handle poisonous or corrosive substances that might make people sick. Automatic machinery that performs dangerous or exhausting tasks allows employees to come to work every day feeling their best. These machines save energy and reduce the risk of on-the-job injuries.
2. Freeing Up Time
Automation allows people to work on something else while a machine does another task. For example, engineers can start working on their next design while a CNC machine cuts a metal block into a specific automotive part. Machine learning operations (MLOps) increases the automation of production models in the software field, allowing developers and IT operators to create higher-quality software [1]. Amazon fulfillment centers use mechanical arms equipped with AI and computer vision to sort items and packages into the correct bins.
Furthermore, since a machine can typically finish a task faster than a person, employees end up with a wealth of extra time on their hands. This allows them to be much more efficient at their jobs. Automation can also help people get home on time, such as by doing extra work when a team is short-staffed.
3. Catching And Correcting Errors
Reducing human input invariably reduces errors. People are prone to making mistakes or to showing slight variations in quality, which can cost workers time and energy. In contrast, machines can replicate the same results countless times. The time employees save by not having to correct errors increases productivity.
IoT-connected devices can also look for and correct system flaws as they happen. For example, farmers can put automated collars on their livestock to keep them inside an invisible boundary. When an animal leaves the predetermined area, the internet-connected collar delivers a shock or warning beep to herd it back home.
Even machines that aren’t connected online can catch mistakes in real time. Sorting machines detect tears or illegible addresses on packages, sending them back to human workers to correct before shipment. Drug delivery devices in hospitals flag unusual numbers (indicating a potentially incorrect medicine dosage) to make nurses double-check that they’re giving a patient the right amount of medication.
4. Managing Inventory
Robots can work in fulfillment centers and warehouses to organize inventory. They eliminate the task of walking long distances down aisles looking for an item, scanning it, putting it into a cart, and bringing it back to be packaged. They can put bins full of items on the correct shelves or conveyor belts in a factory.
Automation can also manage digital inventory tasks, such as tracking how much food is in stock, which items need to be ordered soon, and what products are selling fastest. This gives people more time to focus on cognitive tasks.
5. Improving Employee Morale
Doing the same task repeatedly, such as placing a single part into a product on a factory line all day, can demotivate people. Automation can handle boring or demoralizing jobs while employees work on something more fulfilling. For example, robots designed to place labels on boxes can perform this repetitive action all day, giving human workers a greater sense of purpose. Happier workers are more efficient, resulting in higher productivity and better retention.
Automation Promotes Efficiency
Employees benefit when part of the workplace is automated. It saves people time and energy, boosts productivity, and catches errors as they occur. Companies that integrate automation will help their employees succeed at their jobs.
References:
[1] Challenges of deploying ML models in production
