Yazaki finds humans are essential, not obsolete, for the future

DETROIT -- For Yazaki North America, adaptability, innovation and competitiveness come from humans -- not machines.

The Japanese wire harness supplier this week touted that humans are integral to its advanced monozukuri approach to Industry 4.0. Monozukuri manufacturing is not only a process but also a philosophy, Doug Neely, director of advanced monozukuri research at Yazaki, said during a presentation at the Detroit auto show.

He said the Japanese term can be translated as "the spirit by which things are made" or "the way to make things and the way to develop human beings." The goal for the approach is to let the product and its demand drive when and how the company delivers automation technologies to its customers.

Neely said this means the automotive industry cannot talk about automation with the idea to use fewer people, or reduce payroll. Instead, he said the industry needs to find right ways to apply automation -- to empower, to promote and to support human goals and values.

"There is a lot of pressure in the industry to automate, and manufacturers are tempted to over-promise the delivery of technology without clearly understanding the business goals or the product conditions needed to create real value through automation," said Neely. "The monozukuri concept helps us focus on our priorities and cultivate the spirit of continuous improvement and investment in the people that help companies and their services thrive."

For auto suppliers, such philosophies are key to the continuous improvement -- and cost savings -- needed to compete for new business with automaker customers. Yazaki's North American CEO, Bo Andersson, presided over General Motors' purchasing department for several years, and he was well known for making these demands on his supply chain. Now he's on the other end of that equation.

To explain monozukuri, Neely used the analogy of a woodworker. Woodworkers, he said, are skillful people who practice using tools and materials, producing a result that functions with intention. Furthermore, monozukuri brings the knowledge, skills, product and process together, he said.

"The idea is that this [monozukuri] is knowledge work," said Neely. "To be able to apply tools and materials for functional purposes, and do it with skill. We need to invest in the people."

He added: "We can think of craftsmanship in terms of professionalism if we want to apply this to our mass production processes, not just the custom-made, handcrafted labor work. The question of 'when is everything going to be automated?' is the wrong question."

Neely said manufacturers need to ask why they want to automate and when they should automate. For example, Yazaki wants to have a goal-oriented approach and wants to eliminate waste, said Neely. It also wants the flexibility to adapt to new conditions. Overall, he said, Yazaki's approach is to create total product competitiveness.

Neely told Automotive News Wednesday that manufacturers can automate tasks that humans either cannot, should not or refuse to do. This includes jobs that have safety resistance or repetitive work, which can result in high employee turnover. He also said it applies to situations in which humans cannot achieve the desired quality.

For example, a job with a difficult technical specification is one manufacturers could consider automating. Moreover, Neely said a manufacturer can automate a product that has been designed with the idea of automation in mind.

"We need to think about how our behavior and how the product is affecting our ability to automate if we want to come to an automation solution in the near time," said Neely. "We can't automate highly complex products that have unstable processes or unstable characteristics that are constantly besieged by change or new components. It's also challenging to automate in situations that are never stabilized."

Yazaki ranks No. 12 on the Automotive News list of the top 100 global suppliers, with worldwide sales to automakers of $15.75 billion in 2017.