The critical role of humans in digital industry

Yesterday CNBC asked me to comment on a Wall Street Journal article which pointed out that most state-of-the-art production tools in U.S. factories are made by foreign companies. I also was asked about the impact of automation on the U.S. workforce.

I really appreciated the opportunity to answer these questions. I also had the opportunity to discuss these topics throughout the day at our digital industry showcase – Siemens Innovation Day USA – and in an interview with Cheddar.  

Siemens is a global technology company operating in more than 190 countries. But we pride ourselves on being local, especially here in the United States.

 Our U.S. roots go back more than 160 years. The U.S. is now our largest market in the world, home to 50,000 employees across all 50 states and more than 60 manufacturing sites.

In the past 15 years, our company has invested $35 billion domestically strengthening our U.S. presence while creating an even larger economic ripple effect. Today, more than 800,000 U.S. jobs are linked to Siemens global business operations. We are also a net-exporter, last year sending $5.5 billion worth of goods manufactured at US Siemens plants to customers around the world.

These investments include $1 billion annually in U.S.-based R&D. At Innovation Day yesterday, held at our major U.S. R&D center in Princeton, N.J., we saw new technology being innovated and developed in the labs – SpiderBots that could enable large-scale collaborative 3D printing – quite literally walk across the stage. That future of producing advanced manufacturing technology is here in the U.S. – and with America’s startup culture and leading software development, it’s also here to stay.

We see a bright future for American workers working alongside robots. Our view is that there is a role for robots on the factory floor, but there is also a critical role for humans. Where there are repetitive tasks, tasks that would put humans in harm’s way or where competitive pressures demand higher levels of quantity and speed than humans can provide, there is a role for robots. Yet the value chain is completed by workers who know how to optimize all manufacturing tasks including working with these robots, not to mention run, maintain, and design them.

We do think, though, that industrial skill sets have become a lot more advanced and require more than a high school education. This is why we’re committed to industrial re-skilling. We invest $50 million annually in our workforce – including continuing education. We are partnering with community college programs to launch local apprenticeship programs, based on the proven German model, in four cities. And we’ve granted billions of dollars worth of our state-of-the-art industrial software – our PLM software – to academic and training institutions throughout the country. In fact, yesterday we granted $315 million worth of our PLM software to Connecticut’s community college system.

Recently we raised our level of investment in these activities. We’re going to double the size of our apprenticeship program; hire 300 new veterans annually over the next three years – up to at least an additional 1,000; and grant an additional $2 billion worth of industrial software package to academic and training institutions.

This is important, especially since at Innovation Day, we wanted to make clear that the digital transformation of industry and infrastructure and cities isn’t coming in the future; it’s already here. Siemens is using a comprehensive approach – with digital services, software, and a new operating system for IoT, Mindsphere – to help customers optimize operations. 

For many decades, the rate of change for product development held relatively steady. Now, innovation is happening faster than ever before – exponentially faster, even. One Siemens customer, since adopting Siemens software solutions, is now designing products 200 times faster than they were before. Innovation that recently seemed years away, such as artificial intelligence, is now well within our reach.

But the evolution of the industrial world is not one where robots take over – it’s one where robots and highly-skilled workers add value. From smart factories to intelligent infrastructure, Siemens is committed to investing in our human capital.