Microelectronics, Automation and Employment in the Automobile Industry

by Susumu Watanabe (Editor), Automation Microelectronics

A comparative study of microelectronic automation technology, such as robots, numerical control machine tools, and computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacture equipment. Examines its major applications, and its effects on employment, revealing considerable differences between many countries depending on the level of automation achieved prior to the advent of the new technology, the efficiency of work organization, and workers' quality. The main conclusion of the volume is that the °enormously labor-saving effects° of microelectronics is a myth, and that the effect of new technology has been largely confused with those of considerably intensified international competition and general rationalization programs.

224 pages, Hardcover

First published August 10, 1987