Maybe this will calm your fears of being replaced by a robot
Jan 25, 2017, 7:45 AM | Updated: 12:14 pm
I’ve talked to experts who are warning us that robots are eyeing our jobs and that any manufacturing jobs that do come back will just go to those robots.
But not true!
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CBS’s Mark Strassman visited a new bicycle factory in South Carolina run by Bicycle Corporation of America, which brought 10 percent of the work it does in China back to the U.S. What made them do it?
A combination of things. First, it’s a family business. Arnold Kamler, the CEO has worked there most of his life. Number two, wages for his Chinese workers were going up, as was the turnover rate. Every month, 16 percent of the workforce quits.
“The loyalty of workers in China does not exist. Workers cannot wait to change from job to job,” he said.
And number three, Kamler decided, with the encouragement of the Governor of South Carolina, was to invest $6 million in robots.
“Using the same amount of people, we can do about three times as many hubs in a day,” he explained.
And that was the recipe.
Most American bike manufacturing long ago left for China. But Bicycle Corporation of America found that it could change that. And it didn’t involve threats, it involved a CEO who’s invested in his family’s company, loves to ride along the assembly line on his bike and decided to install $6 million worth of robots – not to replace workers, but to make them more productive.
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