Company’s Overview
You will conduct a review of the literature in the subject area of Automation. Specifically, you are to identify the origins of the concept of the Technological Unemployment and to chart its development up to the present day. Following your review, you are to critically evaluate the impact of Technological Unemployment on a company of your choice. You will be expected to illustrate your discussion with examples drawn from authoritative business and academic sources.
Managing operation can be termed a very complex process in which professionals especially the managers’ skills and work-related experiences are tested. Such complexities can be reduced or resolved if managers are resilient in characteristic and are passionate about the latest & emerging technologies. This study is based on the automation of work and also examines whether the technological unemployment is true.
The chosen company for this study is Caltex in Singapore. It is a petroleum brand of Chevron Corporation. Chevron works with Caltex brand in a close to 60 countries covering regions such as the Asia-Pacific region, Southern Africa and the Middle East. The company said to have arrived in Singapore in the 50s. In its initial days, Caltex was benefitted from working closely with the Texas Company (China) Ltd. The year 1999 was a remarkable year for Caltex as the company shifted the headquarter branch from the US to Singapore. Caltex Singapore is the regional hub for the rest of Asia for marketing strategies. Caltex collaborates with different bodies to offer its customers the diverse list of products. Caltex StarCard is the result of one of those collaborations. It offers its customers the facilities to access the online billing statements, credit with no interest and others. Caltex Star Mart is another service as the result of Caltex’s collaborations with different firms belonging to different industries. Customers of Star Mart can be all those who need groceries, snacks and other basic valuable items. Hence, its customers will generally comprise of Millennials, Boomers and Baby Boomers. Caltex also provides the advanced lubricants which are useful for commercial fleet, construction sites and others. Hence, the list of consumers also includes the commercial fleet service provider such as the logistics and the construction companies (Caltex.com 2018).
Range of concepts and techniques:
According to Walker (2014), automation such as robots is a threat to employment in sectors that require the expensive human labor. Automation is in the process for the last 200 hundred years and no such destruction has yet happened. Managers in such circumstances can adopt the useful strategies like shortening the work in a week and applied in conjunction with basic income guarantee (BIG).
Literature Review
As opined by Mokyr, Vickers and Ziebarth (2015), technology is a source to economic progress; however, it has kept on creating the cultural anxiety throughout the history. The author is optimistic about a change in job trend if innovation continues to evolve.
As supported by Duernecker (2014), automation will not create problems for the unemployed people. Managers and the state government can successfully manage the technological unemployment through an ideal insurance system for the unemployed people.
According to Floridi (2014), technological unemployment is controllable and automation is also feasible if there are proper strategies to strengthen the state’s economy. There are the needs to realize the appropriate places for low wages, workers and robots.
Peters (2017) has supported the fact that technological unemployment is a reality which is heading towards much faster. The author says that robots will obsolete the participation of humans largely if proper counters from managers are not adopted.
Opportunities and constraints:
In the opinion of Frey and Osborne (2017), computerization of work is in existence for a long time. The author, on the basis of a huge sample of more than a hundred different types of jobs, claims that there are many jobs which can be automated whereas others not. The operation will have opportunities to automate a few of work while managers will be under constraints that more others cannot.
As opined by Marchant, Stevens and Hennessy (2014), change looks possible and the transition to a new technological world is almost certain. The authors have asked to prepare accordingly by making shorter-term policies and afterward appealing to the government for providing the material means to people who will be losing the jobs.
As argued by Gajewska (2014), the era of technological unemployment will encourage people to find other and privatized means of earning. They will then much rely upon self-organization to fulfill their purpose.
Roblek, Meško and Krapež (2016) agree with the fact that the future of work will be largely automated and also say that industries will be in huge benefits. The author says that automation is right here such as the use of IoT.
As viewed by DeCanio (2016), the automation of work will have its adverse impact on labor wages. The author identifies that even a slight interference of robots in a construction firm will certainly affect the human wages.
The theoretical and real life applications:
As opined by Hughes (2014), technological unemployment needs to be dealt with a proposition that everyone has a right. The author also believes that if laws for minimum wages are removed and economic stability is also attained, then there would probably be no threat of unemployment.
Scenario Development
According to Campa (2014), the artificial intelligence which the human being creates will certainly make the job market more complex. The author also says that in the best circumstances, humans would enjoy working while robots will only do the dirty and hard tasks.
As argued by Spencer (2017), the automation of work is nothing but a capitalist move to produce the digital technologies. Industries and trades are doing it to replace humans from machines to enhance the company’s profitability margin.
According to Calvino and Virgillito (2018), the automation as of now has no such evident impact on wages. However, the authors do not deny the possibilities for an impact in future.
As opined by Hirsch-Kreinsen (2016), industries that hold a competitive advantage with the automated technologies they have will only have a reserved nature for future automation. The author says that there will be more automation of work in the future.
Business relevance:
Caltex is indeed a pretty old company. The sustenance for such a long period of time could have been possible only due to its capability to face any kind of circumstances like good or challenging. Hence, automation which is an increasingly growing fact should also be a part of this company. Adding to the fact, Caltex has the resource capabilities and the competencies which it can use to leverage the highlighted opportunity (Slack, Brandon-Jones and Johnston 2011).
Design evidence-based:
Based on the 2016 Frey & Osborne findings, automation can be applied to the chosen company Caltex. The probability of computerization for Caltex is (> 70%). Therefore, according to the automation computerization is possible. Furthermore, as per Frey & Osborne, evidence for jobs that are at risk is the wages and education. Low-skill workers who are paid the high wages are at high risk to lose the job as according to Frey & Osborne. In the context of Caltex, sales people who are deployed at stations are normally the low-skilled workers. They also get the lower wages. Hence, according to Frey & Osborne, they should not be at risk. However, Caltex can still consider the automation of jobs, so that, work-efficiency is improved and also that sales people feel a reduced work pressure. Moreover, the employee satisfaction level will also improve.
Following is the list of possible areas (Womack, and Jones 2015):
- Petrol/diesel filling
- Billing system
- Data generation
- Service standard
Resources competencies and capabilities
The chosen company is well equipped with resource competencies and capabilities which will effectively support the automation process.
Resource capabilities:
- Ambidexterity across promising domains
- Capable of managing the business ecosystem
- Ability to fulfill the requirements of workplace health & safety
Resource competencies:
- Financial risk management
- Business modeling
Conclusion
In summary, this can be said that Caltex should consider the automation in the suggested list of areas. Automation may produce a list of challenge; however, the suggested areas of automation should not create a too much of the issue to the case study company. As mentioned, the company has the adequate resource compatibilities and competencies to undergo the suggested automation process.
The identified areas at risk in Caltex have been judged based on efficiency and the cost of production. Procurement of required machines will be an essential part of the job automation. A short training for staffs to make them familiar with the newly incepted machines will also be required. Training outcomes and the impact of new machines need to be monitored as the initial few days will be under observation to identify whether any more changes are still required.
The change process in Caltex
The future of work at Caltex will be a mixture of manual and automated work. As per the assumption, there will be the considerable reduction in the number of staffs working at Caltex stations. Initially, oil filling was needed to be done manually. The process was not that accurate leaving the customer in all sorts of doubts about whether they have received the correct filling of oil. Customers in future will now be ensured of correct filling and so, the company’s reputation will improve. Workers will have the reduced burden to handle. Hence, employee satisfaction at the station will also improve.
There will be a notable reduction in the total workers’ strength as few works will now be automated. Works as such checking of oils, filling of oils, payment system and the billing system will be automated and hence, the company will have an option to cut off a few jobs. The future work at Caltex stations will be taken care of by a reduced number of staffs. There will be a change in the training pattern as well. Staffs will now be trained on technicalities of using the different devices.
Evidence for the change is the wages and education. The future work will now be possible with staffs who are less educated. Moreover, they will be ready to work even at lower wages. Profitability margin for the company should probably increase
References
Caltex.com. 2018. Caltex in Singapore – About Us | Caltex Singapore. Retrieved from https://www.caltex.com/sg/about-us/who-we-are/caltex-in-singapore.html
Calvino, F. and Virgillito, M.E., 2018. The innovation?employment nexus: A critical survey of theory and empirics. Journal of Economic Surveys, 32(1), pp.83-117.
Campa, R., 2014. Technological growth and unemployment: a global scenario analysis. Journal of evolution and technology, 24(1), pp.86-103.
DeCanio, S.J., 2016. Robots and humans–complements or substitutes?. Journal of Macroeconomics, 49, pp.280-291.
Duernecker, G., 2014. Technology Adoption, Turbulence, and the Dynamics of Unemployment. Journal of the European Economic Association, 12(3), pp.724-754.
Floridi, L., 2014. Technological unemployment, leisure occupation, and the human project. Philosophy & Technology, 27(2), pp.143-150.
Frey, C.B. and Osborne, M.A., 2017. The future of employment: how susceptible are jobs to computerization?. Technological forecasting and social change, 114, pp.254-280.
Gajewska, K., 2014. Technological Unemployment but Still a Lot of Work: Towards Prosumerist Services of General Interest. Journal of Evolution and Technology, 24(1), pp.104-112.
Hirsch-Kreinsen, H., 2016. Digitization of industrial work: development paths and prospectsDigitalisierung industrieller Arbeit: Entwicklungspfade und Perspektiven. Journal for Labour Market Research, 49(1), pp.1-14.
Hughes, J.J., 2014. Are Technological Unemployment and a Basic Income Guarantee Inevitable or Desirable? Journal of Evolution and Technology, 24(1), pp.1-4.
Marchant, G.E., Stevens, Y.A. and Hennessy, J.M., 2014. Technology, unemployment & policy options: Navigating the transition to a better world. Journal of Evolution and Technology, 24(1), pp.26-44.
Mokyr, J., Vickers, C. and Ziebarth, N.L., 2015. The history of technological anxiety and the future of economic growth: Is this time different?. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 29(3), pp.31-50.
Peters, M.A., 2017. Technological unemployment: Educating for the fourth industrial revolution.
Roblek, V., Meško, M. and Krapež, A., 2016. A complex view of industry 4.0. Sage Open, 6(2), p.2158244016653987.
Slack, N., Brandon-Jones, A. and Johnston, R., 2011. Essentials of operations management. Financial Times Prentice Hall.
Spencer, D., 2017. Work in and beyond the Second Machine Age: the politics of production and digital technologies. Work, employment and society, 31(1), pp.142-152.
Walker, M., 2014. BIG and technological unemployment: Chicken Little versus the economists. Journal of Evolution and Technology, 24(1), pp.5-25.
Womack, J.P. and Jones, D.T., 2015. Lean solutions: how companies and customers can create value and wealth together. Simon and Schuster.
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