Cable Forum - View Single Post

Chrysalis · 28-10-2011, 20:17

Its more replacing manual workers with skilled workers to operate the machines and to design/build them. So the bottom end of the workforce is affected.

When I started at walkers crisps in the late 1990s each machine on my production line was manned by 5-9 manual workers about 40-60 per shift usually.

By the time I left about 5 years later the average per machine was down to 3 and about 15 per production line per shift. As there was 4 shifts thats a loss of 180 workers for one production line. the last year of my time there, they were well on the way to automating another production line as well which would have had a higher % drop.

However during this same time period they increased employment of machine technicians. Although it was more like an extra 5 techs for about 40 workers lost. Not 1 for 1.

28-10-2011, 20:17	#15
Chrysalis cf.mega poster Join Date: Sep 2003 Posts: 12,047	Re: The machines are taking our jobs Its more replacing manual workers with skilled workers to operate the machines and to design/build them. So the bottom end of the workforce is affected. When I started at walkers crisps in the late 1990s each machine on my production line was manned by 5-9 manual workers about 40-60 per shift usually. By the time I left about 5 years later the average per machine was down to 3 and about 15 per production line per shift. As there was 4 shifts thats a loss of 180 workers for one production line. the last year of my time there, they were well on the way to automating another production line as well which would have had a higher % drop. However during this same time period they increased employment of machine technicians. Although it was more like an extra 5 techs for about 40 workers lost. Not 1 for 1.