Ways manufacturers can facilitate a healthier automation culture

Automation culture insights

• Automation addresses challenges like labor shortages and enhance overall efficiency, but organizations must ensure their employees understand the overarching automation goals.
• An organization’s automation efforts should start with identifying a need and then identifying the appropriate set of technologies to meet the need.

Whether managing day-to-day operations or undergoing a massive production change, culture is integral to the success of every manufacturing organization. Organizational culture is frequently used to describe how a company upholds essential organizational processes and roles. Phrases such as “quality culture” and “a culture of safety” are pervasive in manufacturing firms, as quality and safety are universally recognized as significant drivers of success in our industry. Consequently, companies often shape their documentation practices, facility signage and communication strategies based on their specific safety and quality cultures.

As firms increasingly turn to automation to address challenges like labor shortages and enhance overall efficiency, nurturing a robust automation culture becomes essential. This entails ensuring all the organization’s employees understand the overarching automation goals, how their company utilizes internal resources for automation and the technologies permitted within their facilities (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Nurturing a robust automation culture involves ensuring all the organization’s employees understand the overarching automation goals, how their company utilizes internal resources for automation and the technologies permitted within their facilities. Courtesy: Motion Automation Intelligence

The three elements of organizational culture

Organizational culture is a widely studied concept in business and psychology. Experts have identified three interconnected components of an organization’s culture: artifacts, espoused values and underlying assumptions.

1. Artifacts are the processes and technologies we implement — existing processes, documentation and current machine layouts are all examples of the current state of our operations. In essence, artifacts are what our automation culture has produced in the past.
2. Espoused values are the ideal business processes, goals and strategies we profess when implementing automation. Reducing costs, improving operator safety and increasing operational efficiency are espoused values that we strive for but may not always achieve. However, as the adage goes, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”
3. Underlying assumptions lie at the foundation of an automation culture and often drive our detailed decisions as we adopt particular automation technologies. Essential to these underlying assumptions are our beliefs about automation, individual biases and the common behaviors we exhibit when implementing automation. These thought patterns are the easiest of the three components to identify — numerous studies and anecdotal accounts have documented these behaviors.

Underlying assumptions and common thought patterns are the bedrock of an automation culture. Against this backdrop, the five phrases below represent typical behaviors encountered during automation implementation. Here’s how these aspects of automation culture impede or facilitate efficient adoption:

Where is the human in the loop?

With any automation project, firms must determine whether automation augments or replaces a human operator in the system. Many factors influence these decisions and decisions on how to automate a process are critical to developing a technically feasible solution and a financially viable return on investment Table 1 features the relative advantages of human operators and automated systems, as reported in a recent survey of automation stakeholders.

Obstacle: Requiring automation to eliminate all operator involvement in a process. Human dexterity, the ability to respond to a wide variety of deviations and the human ability to inspect products and processes should not be ignored.

Enabler: Using human operators’ strengths and abilities where financially and technically appropriate. The appropriate level of automation for a process is not always totally automated. Significant reductions in labor overhead and eliminating tasks with poor ergonomics should be considered equally valuable in reducing the labor burden in a particular process.

Is this a solution or a science project?

When approaching automation, firms are often forced to balance the scope of a particular project and the requirement for external resources. While the trend of manufacturing firms outsourcing their automation expertise continues on a large scale, automation technologies have become increasingly user-friendly and modular. The timing and manner of engaging third parties like automation distributors and system integrators can often make or break an automation effort.

Obstacle: Attempting to improve highly niche manufacturing processes with simple component upgrades. In some cases, vast amounts of data or highly specific industry knowledge are required to develop what amounts to trade secrets in a particular inspection process or manufacturing tactic.

Enabler: Tackling simpler tasks with automation (pick-and-place, machine tending) with in-house resources and allowing specialized third-party providers (integrators, machine builders) to handle more niche process updates. Keeping it in-house or seeking external integration help is a key inflection point in the automation adoption process.

We’ve been burned in the past.

Selecting the correct technology or set of technologies is crucial in an automation effort. Our perceptions of what will work in a certain area are often shaped by our experience with a product or technology. Factors that affect the success of an automated work cell are varied. Even if a particular technology has been misapplied in the past, it could be successful in the future if correctly applied.

Obstacle: Ruling out automation technologies in a new automation effort because they didn’t work in a previous attempt. Automated systems usually comprise many different components. A close study of an automation failure may reveal that an actuator has been undersized or that a robot was being forced to pick parts well over its intended payload.

Enabler: Approaching new automation efforts with a clean slate. If an automation technology meets the requirements for cycle time, force, longevity, etc., always be open to the possibility that a particular component will be sufficient when properly applied. The design space for a solution grows exponentially when manufacturers open themselves to this chance.

Is there anything we could do with the product design?

Implementing changes to any given product’s design is not always easy. Customer requirements and engineering constraints often drive a product’s primary function and construction. However, allowing automation efforts to influence product design may be the key to unlocking new possibilities regarding how we manufacture products. Even the simplest modifications, like adding locating features or flats to a cylindrical part (see Figure 2), can improve the likelihood of automation success.

Figure 2: Product modifications may rise to meet the capabilities of existing automation technology to establish an optimal process improvement. Courtesy: Motion Automation Intelligence

Obstacle: Assuming a product design or manufacturing process is set in stone. While product modifications are not always possible, maintaining an open dialogue with the product development group is pivotal. If the question of manufacturability or the implementation of features that would assist in robotic part handling is never raised, these modifications will likely never occur.

Enabler: Proposing product modifications that would greatly improve its ability to automate. Product design methodologies like Boothroyd and Dewhurst’s Design for Manufacturing or Design for Automated Assembly are well established in the engineering design field. Not every automation effort can be solved by simply selecting the right component — input from the shop floor can be invaluable to product design teams if communicated.

Let’s find a place to use this new technology.

A common mistake is starting with a solution and then searching for a problem to solve. Automation efforts should always be approached by identifying a need, then identifying the appropriate set of technologies to meet the need.

Obstacle: Forcing a particular technology or product into a process where it is inappropriate. A common example is using a speed- and force-limited robot where cycle times require extremely high speeds.

Enabler: Establishing the root cause of an operational inefficiency before selecting an automation technology. In some cases, enhancing incoming part quality may improve the throughput of existing equipment. In other cases, simple improvements in motion control or fixturing may solve a quality issue. Understanding the issue at hand can guide firms in establishing the scope of an automation project.

A firm’s automation culture is crucial to manufacturing success, alongside the more traditional aspects of organizational culture, such as safety and quality. Foundational to this automation culture are beliefs, behaviors and underlying assumptions guiding automation adoption, even as formal processes are specified on paper. They may serve as an obstacle to efficient automation adoption or enable a healthy automation culture. As manufacturing firms seek to innovate and improve their operations, knowing when and how to engage partners like automation distributors and system integrators remains vital to success.

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