Ethics of Electronics

I read an article on CNET written in September 2012 about the working conditions at Foxconn, the manufacturer of the iPhones for Apple, in their many factories in China. Foxconn has been under a lot of scrutiny over the treatment of their employees, with many reports and instances of harsh working conditions, employee suicides, riots, and even explosions at two of their plants. This raises the issue of the ethical stance of Apple in regards to one of its major suppliers, Foxconn, and if Apple should be taking more action to make sure the people who are making their iPhones and other products are being treated with the dignity and respect any human deserves.

It's pretty common knowledge that working conditions in China and other parts of Asia are not too great or held to high standards legally like in Western countries. Foxconn is no exception. In one of their factories in a highly populated region of China, they were employing over 190,000 workers in 2012 with projections of that number growing to over 300,000 workers in the future. It's pretty easy to imagine how the conditions would be with that many people working in a plant that covers approximately 2.2 square miles. Long shifts with forced, unpaid overtime involving meticulous and repetitive tasks is a norm for most employees. Once they finally get to rest, they retire to their dormitories provided by Foxconn, in which one employee reported she had a bunk bed in a room that was shared with seven other workers. At the time of the article the average employee was earning $244 a month, which barely covered rent for the dormitory and food that would be bought from Foxconn canteens. Managers are also ruthless to employees, harshly punishing employees for mistakes for all of their coworkers to witness. Also around the time of the article it had gotten so bad at the Taiyun factory that a violent riot involving 2,000 workers broke out. Some employees even went so far as to have the mindset that suicide was a better option for them. In response, Foxconn has installed nettings around some of the facilities to prevent any further attempts.

Source:http://www.wired.com/2010/11/thomas-lee-foxconn/

Although these conditions appear brutal, they may not be all that surprising to some. There are factories and firms with far worse conditions in Asia. The issue here is if Apple is doing enough to prevent these issues and help put the people who make their products into a better condition. Apple has stated that they are deeply concerned with the conditions and any accusations otherwise are false and offensive to them. This may be true, but these conditions are still occurring, and I assume Apple has the power to apply a lot of pressure to Foxconn to change these conditions, otherwise they could take their manufacturing contracts to a different firm. Foxconn also says that they are doing everything in their power to improve conditions for their workers, but it wouldn't be a very pressing issue to you to make things better for existing employees that are complaining when there are hundreds of thousands of people banging on your doors begging for work. 

While the conditions are bad, the employee pay for the work they do is the real downfall here. They go through all of these hardships to try to provide for their loved ones and at the end of the month have barely anything left over to send to family. One of the ways that Apple could make an impact into the issue would be to pay Foxconn more for their contracts to allow for higher employee wages. The article reported that in June of 2012, Apple had $117 billion IN CASH. I think they could afford to pay the people who make their shiny products a little more dough. Or, if profits are really the only thing they care about, they should take their contracts to other firms that are committed to treating their employees better. If people are choosing suicide over working in these conditions, there is something inherently wrong that needs to be changed, and the entity that is ultimately responsible in these situations is at the top of the tree. In this case, an Apple tree. 

Source: http://www.cnet.com/news/riots-suicides-and-other-issues-in-foxconns-iphone-factories/

New Manufacturing Process for Toyota

Source: http://wemakeitsafer.com/vehicle-recall/Toyota-Camry-Recall-7123626

Toyota Motor Corp., one of the forerunners for lean manufacturing and a innovator in industrial engineering techniques, has been the benchmark for automobile manufacturers for a long time. But now the best-selling car maker in the world is looking to Volkawagen AG for a crazy new idea: modular manufacturing.

Modular manufacturing is a manufacturing process that shares components across different products, slashing production costs greatly. A large portion of Toyota's cars in the future will share many identical or similar components, making it easier to produce a variety of vehicles in the same facility. The old way of automobile manufacturing used to be one facility, one line, one vehicle model, but under this new process of modular manufacturing it will allow Toyota to produce a variety of models with flexibility and ease all on one line in one facility.

It can easily be seen how this process could reduce manufacturing costs. With the smaller manufacturing lines that the modular process allows, initial plant investment costs are expected to significantly decrease, up to 40% according to Toyota. With the implementation of similar components across a variety of models, plants will be able to order parts in bulk and cut costs with a greater scale of economics. Consumers should be able to expect to see these savings on their end of the bargain as well.

Toyota has been seen as the gold standard for automobile manufacturing for the past few decades in terms of its production system. They've introduced many industrial and manufacturing engineering concepts, such as "continuous improvement" and "just-in-time inventory," which I actually discussed a little in my first blog post. Most importantly, Toyota has been know for their extremely high standard that they hold themselves to in quality control. One of the concerns that arises with this modular manufacturing process is that quality control could suffer significantly. When you have many models of cars that share similar components, you will find systemic issues that will show up across the board with your brand, which will raise the number of recalls you have to perform and will raise your quality control costs greatly. Also, with the greater variety and flexibility that will be present in the manufacturing lines, inspection and tests will be more difficult to conduct or will not be as effective as in the previous process. With a focused line that only produced one model all the time, Toyota knew exactly what to look for at want point in the process to make sure their quality was top notch; with the modular method, that's going to be more difficult.

This is an exciting path that the largest automobile manufacturing firm is choosing to take, for better or worse. Toyota has been the manufacturer to watch and learn from for a long time, so it will be interesting to see how they handle this transition. While the modular manufacturing process will cut costs greatly for the producer and consumer, it may increase the number of defects and recalls that will occur as well. We'll just see where this road takes us.



Source: http://www.wsj.com/articles/toyota-unveils-revamped-manufacturing-process-1427371432

Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems

Across nearly every industry, automation is becoming more and more relevant. With ever-evolving technology, it is becoming easier to implement machine and computer systems to automatically carry out tasks that would have previously required a person to complete. This is both a good and bad thing; automation definitely allows for greater productivity with increased efficiency and less waste, but also takes jobs away from people and puts them in the hands of a machine. It is inevitable, however, that automation will become more and more common in every setting. So it's definitely something to get excited about. A really cool development in manufacturing and inventory control industries are Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_storage_and_retrieval_system

A basic definition of an Automated Storage and Retrieval System is a computer-controlled system that retrieves or stores materials automatically when prompted by a material requirement planning, inventory control, or other material handling system. Material handling that was once done with people using pallet jacks, fork lifts, or pure manpower can now be done with these automated systems that utilize racks, conveyors, elevators, robots, and computers that control it all. Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems are extremely versatile, and can be designed to fit any firm's needs. These systems possess the ability to logically organize and handle a variety of materials, tools, fixtures, components, and any other objects that may have been an extreme hassle to efficiently manage in the past.

The advantages of Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems are plentiful. The most obvious advantage is the more efficient inventory control and tracking. With this system in place, the firm knows exactly how much of each item they have, where the item's origin and destination is, and will know exactly when it's time to get more of that item. ASR Systems are also very adaptable. Most systems are composed of modular subsystems that can be swapped out or rearranged to accommodate for varying business demands or material needs. ASR Systems also increase the safety of the material handling department of the firm. There is a much lesser chance of injury due to strain or fatigue to workers, as well as the reduced, if not eliminated, chance of an accident occurring involving a fork lift or other piece of heavy equipment. One of the last big advantages is the large reduction in material handling and storage costs that these systems allow. The chance of human error in inventory control that could cost a lot of money and down time is eliminated. Also, these systems are able to have a great storage density for the amount of floor space they consume. With the use of the elevators and other vertical components of the system, a lot of inventory is able to be stored in a smaller amount of space than would be in a traditional system that uses fork lifts. These are just some of the major advantages that show how beneficial an Automated Storage and Retrieval System could be to a firm.

As with anything, there are some disadvantages about ASR Systems. Like I mentioned earlier, these systems would greatly reduce the amount of labor force needed in the material handling or inventory control department of a firm, taking jobs away from people. Also, these systems require a substantial up-front investment, as a personally designed, automated system of this magnitude is very expensive. Therefore, ASR Systems really only make sense for very large firms with a great amount of inventory control and tracking needed. Maintenance is also a major concern for these systems to ensure they operate without interruption.

Now you know some more about Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems and the incredible efficiency that they can bring to a manufacturing or inventory control firm. These systems are only going to become more prevalent, and it'll be exciting to see what other innovations these systems will be used in conjunction with in the future.


Sources:
http://www.inc.com/encyclopedia/automated-storage-and-retrieval-systems-as-rs.html
http://www.bastiansolutions.com/automation/automated-storage-retrieval-systems-%28asrs%29

Industrial Engineering

Industrial engineering is the engineering discipline that deals with the design, implementation, and improvement of complex systems and processes. These systems usually involve people, capital, information, equipment, resources, as well as others. Engineering science, mathematics, and physical sciences are used together to optimize these systems to produce the best or most efficient outcome based on the objective of the system. The implications for the use of industrial engineering are extremely wide spread, as industrial engineering principles can be used on nearly any sort of system that you can think of.

People throughout history have always been looking for a better way to complete processes or tasks. Once larger and more complex systems were starting to be built, it became evident quickly that a conscious effort to increase the efficiency of the system would be extremely beneficial. Industrial engineering as we know it today, however, could be said to have started in the early 20th century. Management started to become a science, and how people operated and completed tasks became standardized. Naturally, efforts were made, and are continually made today, to improve upon these standards and increase efficiency and reduce the wastes of resources, time, and money. A prime example of implementation of industrial engineering principles is the use of the assembly line in Henry Ford's car manufacturing factory. He reduced the time it takes to manufacture a car by an astronomical amount, as well as the cost. With the innovation of technology continuing throughout the rest of the century, Material Requirement Planning systems were built to help integrate many different aspects and departments of the firm. These systems are used to help coordinate production planning, scheduling, and inventory control in many manufacturing factories to create a more seamless and efficient manufacturing process. These systems, and derivatives of them, have been improved so much that today "Just in Time" manufacturing is a familiar practice. Basically, the coordination of the scheduling, production, and inventory is so fine that departments will receive materials and resources "just in time," so that there is little to none work-in-progress or idle time. The future of improvements and innovation in industrial engineering appears to be boundless.

When you hear industrial engineering, you probably immediately visualize manufacturing or heavy industry. But the cool thing about industrial engineering is that it can be applied to nearly any service industry as well as manufacturing! Healthcare, safety, transportation and logistics, supply, entertainment, and communication and IT services are all sectors where more and more industrial engineers are being hired to work on and improve the complex systems involved in these services. The ease at which normal consumers are able to utilize these services would not be possible without the application of industrial engineering principles.

As with any engineering discipline, upholding ethics and integrity are of the utmost importance. We are designing and implementing systems that involve large amounts of capital, and our systems affect individuals within the system and the general public as well. Our first responsibility should always be to the public, and we must not design systems that harm or injure the public.