automation. Designing and creating a New World of Work

Of late, American multinational Autodesk has been talking a lot about the Future of Jobs and Work. Why is a design, simulation and manufacturing software company so concerned about this?

The answer is simple: Autodesk has been promoting a new way of making things with automation as a key partner. This will naturally impact jobs and the way we work in sectors ranging from construction, manufacturing to media and entertainment.

Haresh Khoobchandani, Vice-President, Autodesk APAC, explains the link as he walks you through a future of making and work.

“Different things are influencing the work we do,” he says. “Globally, a growing middle class has meant a greater need for everyday things like food, housing, phones, infrastructure. Demand is high. As a result the impact on resources, environment and the planet is high.”

To put it succinctly, we need to make more with less and yet better. This will mean we need to make things differently. So that involves rethinking construction, rethinking manufacturing, and rethinking the process of creation entirely. Naturally, that will change job roles and affect work in all these sectors.

The Future of making

Automation, says Khoobchandani, can partner us in solving this problem of making more with less. “Automation is not all doom as it is painted out to be,” he stresses. Human ingenuity, together with automation, can help us re-imagine manufacturing, he says, giving the example of General Motors.

Earlier, General Motors used automation to optimise production. Now, it uses automation to optimise innovation. The goal that Mary Barra, CEO of GM, has set is to release 20 electric vehicles by 2023. To do so, there needs to be reduction in complexity in building vehicles. “Do you know that a car has some 30,000 parts?” says Khoobchandani. Imagine if the number of parts is reduced.

Take the seat belt area. It has eight components. Using a tech called generative design, in which you put in your goals and constraints and ask for options, GM changed this part totally. Explains Khoobchandani, “The tech gives you gazillion options. You can decide which one you want to go for. GM Motors ended up choosing an option wherein eight components became one that was 40 per cent lighter and 20 per cent stronger. And the whole part was manufactured by 3D printing.”

Generative design, combined with additive manufacture, can change the future of vehicle-making, says Khoobchandani. But, as the example demonstrates, the choice of design is with the human.

If the way cars are being made is changing radically so is the way buildings are being made. As Pradeep Nair, MD, India & SAARC, Autodesk, says, “The construction process has now become a manufacturing process.”

Building differently

The example that Autodesk likes to give is of KEF Infra, which built 200 canteens with attached kitchens in a matter of 45 days for the Indira Canteens programme of the Karnataka government. It could do this by rolling out the canteens in an assembly line in a factory and then just simply assembling it on site. The speed of construction: four canteens a day.

Apart from the time and money saved, Khoobchandani also points to the environmental gains. “Globally, 30 per cent of the world’s waste is coming out of construction. If you reduce that, there is huge opportunity to protect the environment.”

A whole lot of other examples are provided by Nair. A 5,000-sq ft office built in seven months; a gigantic mall built in 21 months.

What is happening, he says, is silos are breaking down. Earlier, design and printing were separate portions — now they are one. Manufacturing and construction have become one. As all these shifts take place, accompanied by automation, it impacts the way we work, increasing productivity in some cases by as much as five-fold.

The key message: we need to be prepared with new skills to fit into this new world of making things.

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