I LIVE IN PITTSBURGH, A CITY THAT WAS ONCE THE POSTER
child for industrial America. It is not called the “Steel City” for nothing.
For much of the last century, the region was an industrial powerhouse,
churning out the steel that built the nation. Then came the 1980s, and
the Steel City became a Rust City.
Plants neglected for decades became too expensive to upgrade.
Manufacturers claimed that labor costs were too high to compete and
began sending jobs to nonunion facilities in other states or overseas.
Their counterparts throughout the country quickly followed suit, abandoning our shores for cheaper labor elsewhere.
With the advent of the new administration in Washington, we hear
great hope that the kind of manufacturing jobs we lost
in the last few decades will come back.
They won’t. At least not like they once were.
Yes, manufacturing will begin to return, but it will
not be due to the threat of tariffs and political bullying.
It will be because manufacturing in America makes
sense again. The difference now is that automation can
make manufacturing at home competitive once more.
Several factors provide the perfect atmosphere for
automation’s growth. First, the rise of a middle class
in China and elsewhere means that overseas labor is
no longer the bargain it once was. Second, there have
been huge advances in computing power, with costs
that continue to drop.
Developments in the robotics industry are provid-
ing new tools for modern automation. The International Federation of
Robotics expects that 1. 4 million new industrial robots will be put to
work in factories worldwide within the next two years. That’s a huge
increase, considering there are just 2. 6 million in use today. To under-
score this trend, IDC Research predicts that by 2020, some 30 percent of
tech companies will have a person identified as “Chief Robotics Officer.”
As for Pittsburgh, it’s a Rust Belt city that had to learn to reinvent
itself. Today, it is a leader in developing robotics, thanks in large part to
research at Carnegie Mellon University and the many robotics compa-
nies it has spawned.
While old-style manufacturing jobs will not return, there is great
potential for job growth in modern factories where people and automated equipment work together (see our story on p. 37). However, these
will require employees with different skills from those needed in the past.
As a nation, we need to concentrate our educational efforts on the
technical jobs needed for the future because competition will be fierce.
Remember those 1. 4 million new robots expected within the next two
years? An estimated 40 percent of them will be headed to factories in
China.
bigpicture
Chief Editor
David Maloney
Chief Editor
dmaloney@dcvelocity.com
Karen Bachrach
Executive Editor - Features
karen@dcvelocity.com
Mark Solomon
Executive Editor - News
mark@dcvelocity.com
Martha Spizziri
Managing Editor - Digital
martha@dcvelocity.com
Ben Ames
Senior Editor
ben@dcvelocity.com
Toby Gooley
Senior Editor
tgooley@dcvelocity.com
Susan Lacefield
Editor at Large
slacefield@dcvelocity.com
Steve Geary
Editor at Large
sgeary@dcvelocity.com
Diane Rand
Associate Editor–Digital
diane@dcvelocity.com
Erica E. Mac Donald
Assistant Editor
Keisha Capitola
Director of Creative Services
keisha@dcvelocity.com
Jeff Thacker
Director of eMedia
jeff@dcvelocity.com
Columnists:
Clifford F. Lynch
Art van Bodegraven
Gary Master
Publisher
gmaster@dcvelocity.com
Mitch Mac Donald
Group Editorial Director
mitch@dcvelocity.com
Peter Bradley
Editorial Director
peter@dcvelocity.com
Jim Indelicato
Group Publisher
jindelicato@dcvelocity.com
EDITORIAL OFFICE
Tower Square, Number 4
500 East Washington Street
North Attleboro, MA 02760
Subscribe at
www.dcvelocity.com
or call (630) 739-0900
A PUBLICATION OF
