Yes, human jobs will be replaced. But that’s not a bad thing

A pet theme of conversation at Qcify is how terribly inefficient manual labor can be. This can lead to the question of whether we’re planning to take away jobs and replace them with machines. The short answer: yes. BUT I want to nuance that a bit and explain why that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

We’ve all felt the impact of crisis

The last few years have felt like a never-ending crisis, between COVID-19, supply chain issues aggravated by Suez, fuel hikes, and now war in Europe. As the pandemic has dragged on, a perfect storm of issues have kept businesses from running smoothly, not least of which are labor shortages.

With COVID-19 making people ill or keeping them home for family care, many companies find human labor more unreliable than ever. This can make them less resilient in the face of other problems, like unpredictable shipments and product damage caused by pests. At the same time, the minimum wage for industry employees is on the rise, making it even harder to compensate for crises by taking on extra staff.?

An inevitable shift

The reluctance of the food and agriculture industry to face up to the issues with human labor has prevented it from innovating as quickly as it should. Whether it’s harvesting, driving forklifts, or quality control, there has been a lag in investing in automation. At the same time it’s becoming clearer than ever that machines are faster, more accurate and more efficient than humans when it comes to most repetitive tasks.

The pandemic has forced the industry to put automation on the fast-track. It just isn’t an option to rely too much on humans anymore, even if there’s enough budget for it. With all the unpredictability in the world, businesses are realizing they need to create consistency where they can. This is feeding the interest in automation to make the production process more resilient.

Rethinking human labor

Companies like ours offer solutions that replace people who do repetitive work. It may sound a bit scary, but this type of job is going to disappear. And it’s not a bad thing! People are simply not meant to do the same thing over again. It’s not what people are good at or what they like to do. Will there still be jobs for people? Yes! Society is evolving to find new roles for humans, who will be more focused on all that is strategic and creative. Jobs like that of data analyst, or machine supervisors will be on the rise.

At the same time, man will work together with smarter machines, such as our new QcifEye which thanks to its deep learning and AI capabilities can pick up on defects that conventional sorters (and humans) cannot. It’s a direct replacement for final hand pickers, and it shows up on time every day, guaranteed. The people who stay on board as supervisors and creative thinkers will find it an excellent colleague.

How is your company meeting today’s labor challenges? I’d love to hear your thoughts!