Title: Man or Machine: The workforce of cleanroom 5.0

If full automation were technically possible, would it be legally achievable, ethically justifiable or economically sensible? The race between men and machine is on. Dr Gernod Dittel explains. In the cleanroom sector, which is already highly automated, digitalisation is considered a potential job killer. The fear of full automation cutting employment must be weighed up with what is best for the cleanroom. Though automation may seem like the holy grail of cost-efficient production, many cleanroom experts believe man is superior to robots in many aspects. For decades, humans have been developing cleanroom technology with machines slowly taking over more and more process steps. They carry out these steps faster, more accurately and, above all, cleaner than the human workforce. So should full automation be employed if possible? The human being is the cleanroom’s greatest source of dirt and germs, an unpredictable and incalculable risk for the entire production line. The worker contaminates the end products and this can cause an expensive halt to production that requires cleaning and tests before restarting. This halt can last anywhere from hours to days, or far more. As a result, many people think that advanced process technology makes people in cleanrooms superfluous, and to an extent, this could be true. For example, a few years ago in a circuit board factory in Shenzhen, China, 3,000 employees worked at cleanroom workbenches. After installation of a modern machine park, only three were left, with only one per shift working as a supervisor of the automated enclosed cleanroom production. However…

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  • Cleanroom Technology

 

  • 1/8/2020

 

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