culture

By Nicola Olivetti, Lean and Industry 4.0 Program Director, iObeya

Recently, a leading industrial journalist asked for an explanation about the pragmatic integration of human-centricity and automation. Below are my responses.

Question: How can you preserve a human-centric approach to collegial work in a highly automated environment?

Answer: Companies with an authentic Lean culture leverage automation to expand the scope of teams by granting real-time access to valuable information. This allows for important activity and relevant people (experts, partners, suppliers, customers) to co-operate in a horizontal and agile manner. [Read more…] about Digital Visual Management: Integration of Human-Centricity and Automation

By Lisa Baertlein and Harriet McLeod, Reuters

The merger that shook food and retail stocks on Friday – Amazon’s proposed deal to buy Whole Foods Market – rattled some employees of the upscale grocery chain who expressed fears ranging from layoffs to the loss of their laid-back corporate culture.

The online retailer hopes the $13.7 billion acquisition helps it disrupt the grocery business and expand its real-world store footprint.

Carmen Clark, 37, a six-year employee at a store in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, said some workers worry that Amazon-led automation could lead to job cuts. [Read more…] about Amazon could assimilate Whole Foods workers into robots and drones in some sort of cyber-physical dystopian Borg-like nightmare