Getting back to basics—Human element enhances a machine’s potential

Last year Toyota made for some sensational headlines when President Akio Toyoda went public with his company’s renewed emphasis on skilled-trades training for its workforce: “Humans Steal Jobs from Robots” (Bloomberg), “Toyota Retires Robots in Favor of Humans” (Just Car News), “Toyota is Replacing Robots with Humans” (Supply Chain Digest). The blasts all had a similar tone.

As often is the case with these “click bait” type headlines, the meat of the story isn’t accurately depicted. Toyota is not replacing machines with people; it hasn’t turned back the clock to a time when automobiles were handcrafted, and it isn’t scrapping years of innovation in automation to add humans to the payroll. But what it is doing, in my opinion, is just as important.

When automobile manufacturers first moved into the automation age, they did so with a workforce that still understood what it took to create any given part by hand. These workers had a basic, fundamental knowledge of how that part was built, and because of that they helped create and streamline the automation process and could troubleshoot when necessary.

As time went on, the majority of automotive factories became almost exclusively reliant on machines. The workforce devolved from hands-on creators and builders to merely button pushers. That’s not necessarily a bad thing for productivity, but the latent effect is a depleted knowledge and skill base. When that first generation of workers transitioned from being hands-on to basically overseeing a machine doing all the work, they had years of experience to draw from to look for hitches in the process, to troubleshoot, and to improve the operation. The farther away we get from that first generation, the less we understand the creation process at an elemental level.

So Toyota turned back the clock with a “new” training program. In plants across Japan, workstations were developed to give the younger workforce a core education in hands-on production. From welding a chassis to forging crankshafts, the next generation is being equipped with the knowledge it takes to build a car without relying on robots. In some instances, workers are even asked to sketch out certain processes on paper to force the visualization of the operation.

The results are improved quality and efficiency with automation. Armed with a deeper understanding of how and why a part is built, the workers are able to spot flaws, develop fixes, and streamline production in a way that simply was not possible when all they knew how to do was push a button. Far from replacing robots, the human element enhances the machine’s potential.

Josh Welton working with the 'basics' in the blacksmith shop at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Az.
Photo courtesy of Josh Welton, Brown Dog Welding.