Abstract
There have been immense changes in the lifestyles of public in terms of technological enhancements and using the same in their daily routines. The current assignment is initiated with the intentions of understanding the concepts of technological unemployment and its related aspects. It would focus upon the operation of Ford Motor Company which is the second largest automotive company all over the world. The company was incorporated in the year 1903 and functions in manufacturing, marketing, designing and servicing line of the luxury vehicles. It would help in identifying the concept and impacts of technological unemployment over the organisational activities. The major reasons found behind the automation in automobile company are the work safety and efficiency at the workplace. The assignment had also included the concepts stated by Frey and Osborne’s related to the technological unemployment.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Company background
- Literature review
- The concept of Technological Unemployment
- Impact of Technological Unemployment in Ford Motors
- Findings of Frey and Osborne’s
- Conclusion
- References
Introduction
Technological advancements have taken a huge space among the lives of people in both the professional and personal manners. There have been immense changes in the lifestyles of public in terms of technological enhancements and using the same in their daily routines. Concerning the business fronts also technology had covered huge area of operations at the workplaces (Towards Data Science, 2018). The current assignment is initiated with the intentions of understanding the concepts of technological unemployment and its related aspects. The report would help in identifying the concept of initiation along with the impacts of technological unemployment over the organisational activities. Moreover, the functionalities of Ford Motor Company would be focused so that to avail adequate amount of understanding and knowledge of the issue specifically.
Company background
Ford Motor Company is been listed as the second largest automotive company all over the world. The company was incorporated in the year 1903 and functions in manufacturing, marketing, designing and servicing line of the luxury vehicles. It operates in mainly 4 segments i.e. financial services, automotive, central treasury operations and Ford smart mobility LLC. It is engaged in the manufacturing, distribution and sale of automobiles having more than 213,000 employees worldwide. It is basically a public company which serves with different operations in automobile industry (Successstory.com. 2018).The basic products of Ford Motor are automobiles luxury vehicles, automotive parts and commercial vehicles along with the services like vehicle services, leasing and automotive finance. Concerning customer segments, people with of middle and higher class along with the people inclined towards luxury are mainly targeted by the company. In addition to this, the largest corporate customers of Ford are majorly in United States followed by China and United Kingdom (Sanda, 2017).
Literature review
The concept of Technological Unemployment
In the new technological era, there has been a huge replacement of technology and automation over the human resources or labor. The emergence of technology in business operations and activities has also become a biggest concern for the human resources at the workplaces. The technological unemployment is basically the loss of jobs due to the technological changes (Stevens and Marchant, 2017). The change majorly includes the introduction of machines as mechanical- muscle to save labor and automation as mechanical minds in order to make the work more efficient at the workplaces specifically. Focusing over the present era, technology had emerged every corner of economy and the lifestyles of public to the great extent.
According to Danaher (2017), the technological advancement had provided with the wide range of efficient results out of the business operations which led the organization replace human resources with the automation or machineries. In order to simplify and enhance the outcome of the businesses, companies had adopted technologies ignoring the influences of the same. Displacements of cashiers by self-service kiosk are the best examples of technological unemployment in the present times. The technologies had provided with wide advantages along with disadvantages over their daily lives.
In context to Ford Motor Company, technological change had caused a long term job losses for the employees of automobile industry (Shravani and Rao, 2018). The introduction of robots or automation in the manufacturing of vehicles had replaced the human resources in the industry extensively. The automation technologies in automotive industry such as collaborative robots, machine vision, cognitive computing in IoT connected cars and artificial intelligence for autonomous cars. The technological unemployment could be thus defined as the unemployment caused due to the emergence of technologies and replacing the jobs of human resources. Recently it has been recorded that a higher number of organizations had moved towards innovation resulting in technological unemployment at the workplaces (Kim and et al, 2017).
Impact of Technological Unemployment in Ford Motors
According to Dauth and et al, (2017) the technological unemployment had laid an impact over both the company and the employees specifically. Technological innovation or automation often results in acquiring more cost efficiency, less safety concern and more consistency in product quality. The organizations at present are moving towards the higher profit opportunities and product quality on lower costs in the business. The technological unemployment would highly influence the human resources of Ford Motors and would result in the reduction of manpower at the workplace. The replacement of employees with machines or robots would impact the economic conditions of employees and thus create job insecurity among them. However, the management of Ford Motors would be influenced with various benefits in its diversified segments like manufacturing, distributing and sales. Automation would help in advancing the process in manufacturing of products and services and moving towards the achievement of higher profitability (Ahangari and et al, 2017).
In the opinion of Marsh (2017), the major reasons behind the automation in automobile company are the work safety and efficiency at the workplace. Even though having high quality work out of good workmanship by human resources, automation performs the process of manufacturing with lesser variability and leads towards greater consistency and control over the product qualities. The enhanced process control would surely provide the company with more effective use of raw material resulting in less scrap out of it. In addition to this, Ford would also be influenced in terms of cost of labor, working hours, product quality, work safety, etc. Technological advancement would help in reducing the average working hour of an employee resulting in higher levels of manufacturing and cost efficiency out of the same (Jacobi and et al, 2017).
Findings of Frey and Osborne’s
According to Frey and Osborne, (2017) the automation of manufacturing and logistics is being benefited with the enhancements in cost efficiencies among computerized cars. The automatic cares are being developed with the intention to bring innovation and diminish the cost of sensors resulting in the enhancements in vehicles with higher cost effective and advanced sensors specifically. Along with this, the automation in logistics and transportation would help the management of Ford Motors in establishing higher efficient services and product quality eventually (Lazar and et al, 2017). The computerization or automation in production occupation suggest following the past trends taking the industrial robots on business operation in manufacturing segment. The industrial robots had become more advanced having superior senses and agility. The technologies in manufacturing segment had largely substituted the skilled labor through the oversimplification of the tasks or activities of the workplace. Concerning the business operations of Ford Motor Company, below are the listed occupations being impacted due to automation at the workplace:
Table 1: Probability of Computerization
| Rank |
Probability |
SOC code |
Occupation |
| 1 |
0.003 |
49-1011 |
First-line supervisors of mechanics, installers, and repairers |
| 2 |
0.0036 |
33-1021 |
First-line supervisors of fire-fighting and prevention workers |
| 3 |
0.016 |
51-1011 |
First-line supervisors of production and operating workers |
| 4 |
0.0055 |
11- 3121 |
Human resources managers |
| 5 |
0.0063 |
11-3131 |
Training and development managers |
| 6 |
0.011 |
17-2141 |
Mechanical engineers |
| 7 |
0.013 |
11-2022 |
Sales managers |
| 8 |
0.03 |
17-3026 |
Industrial engineering technicians (Stevens and Marchant, 2017) |
| 9 |
0.03 |
11-3051 |
Industrial production managers |
| 10 |
0.035 |
11-3021 |
Computer and information systems managers |
| 11 |
0.069 |
11-3031 |
Financial managers |
| 12 |
0.55 |
49- 3022 |
Automotive glass installers and repairers |
| 13 |
0.59 |
49- 3023 |
Automotive service technicians and mechanics |
| 14 |
0.91 |
49- 3021 |
Automotive body and related repairers |
The above table depicts the probability of getting influenced due to computerisation or automation at the workplace of Ford Motors. It is being identified that there are many occupations which are not impacted by the advancement and do not incur any losses. It has been seen that nearly about 10% of the targeted population of occupation would be hampered with the emergence of technological advancement and could lead to technological unemployment in the organisation (Swan, 2017). The related occupation of manufacturing and distribution of vehicles in Ford are likely to be influenced by the technology as it would cover the maximum segment of machines and robots into operations.
However in spite of having maximum automation at the workplace, the employment or jobs incur low risk over them. Considering lower risk scenario, the occupations focused are not much replaced by technology and thus acquire an important role at the workplace. The major occupation which is at higher risk of replacement is the job of manufacturer or the technicians making the car or other vehicles. They are been replaced by the robots or machines making parts and turning them into attractive cars or other parts at the workplace (LaGrandeur and Hughes, 2017). For instance, the mechanics or auto workers at workplace are replaced by robots or machines to develop innovative and efficient cars in less working hours along with the higher cost efficiencies. Moreover, it has been identified that technologies had made the operations of companies more simplified and efficient in terms of both the time and budget management. This had provided them with higher benefits and profitability out of the inputs made.
Conclusion
The above assignment concludes with the fact that technology had changed the scenario of world to a great extent. It has been identified that introduction of technology in business operations and activities has become a biggest concern for the human resources at the workplaces. The technological change had caused a long term job losses for the employees of automobile industry. It has been found that technological unemployment is the unemployment caused due to the emergence of technologies and replacing the jobs of human resources. The major reasons found behind the automation in automobile company are the work safety and efficiency at the workplace. The assignment had also included the concepts stated by Frey and Osborne’s related to the technological unemployment.
References
Books and journals:
Ahangari, H., Atkinson-Palombo, C. and Garrick, N.W., 2017. Automobile-dependency as a barrier to vision zero, evidence from the states in the USA. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 107, pp.77-85.
Danaher, J., 2017. Will life be worth living in a world without work? Technological unemployment and the meaning of life. Science and engineering ethics, 23(1), pp.41-64.
Dauth, W., Findeisen, S., Südekum, J. and Woessner, N., 2017. German robots-the impact of industrial robots on workers.
Frey, C.B. and Osborne, M.A., 2017. The future of employment: how susceptible are jobs to computerisation?. Technological forecasting and social change, 114, pp.254-280.
Jacobi, O., Jessop, B., Kastendiek, H. and Regini, M., 2017. Technological change, rationalisation and industrial relations. Routledge.
Kim, Y.J., Kim, K. and Lee, S., 2017. The rise of technological unemployment and its implications on the future macroeconomic landscape. Futures, 87, pp.1-9.
LaGrandeur, K. and Hughes, J.J., 2017. Introduction: An Overview of Emerging Technology and Employment in the Early Twenty-First Century. In Surviving the Machine Age (pp. 1-18). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Lazar, J., Feng, J.H. and Hochheiser, H., 2017. Research methods in human-computer interaction. Morgan Kaufmann.
Marsh, M., 2017. Automation: Will the Fourth Industrial Revolution Lead to the Downfall of Human Labor?.
Sanda, G., 2017. A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY IN ROMANIA AND IN EUROPE. Annals of'Constantin Brancusi'University of Targu-Jiu. Economy Series.
Shravani, N.K. and Rao, S.B., 2018. Introducing Robots without Creating Fear of Unemployment and High Cost in Industries.
Stevens, Y.A. and Marchant, G.E., 2017. Policy solutions to technological unemployment. In Surviving the Machine Age (pp. 117-130). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Swan, M., 2017. Is technological unemployment real? An assessment and a plea for abundance economics. In Surviving the Machine Age (pp. 19-33). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Online
Successstory.com. (2018). Ford Profile, History, Founder, Founded, Ceo | Automaker Companies | SuccessStory. [Online] Available at: https://successstory.com/companies/ford-motor-company [Accessed 3 Jul. 2018].
Towards Data Science. (2018). The Future of Technology in the Automotive Industry. [Online] Available at: https://towardsdatascience.com/the-future-of-technology-in-the-automotive-industry-11081c8a1999 [Accessed 3 Jul. 2018].