COMMENT February 2022 Automation Smarter solutions for industrial efficiency automationmagazine.co.uk February 2022 Automation


IN THIS ISSUE Robotics & Automotive Supply Chain


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Coding, Marking & Labelling Packaging and Logistics Materials Handling Food & Beverage


Driving flexibility, productivity and sustainability in smart manufacturing


06 16 26 34


Changing times, changing business practices


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Western businesses are all aflutter right now with changing practices that are meant to ensure their operations are ethical, sustainable and kind to the planet and people. The recent COP26 climate change event made this urgency even more acute, but Japanese companies will tell you that they have always, from the very beginning, considered these tenets to be at the heart of their operational practices. Japanese companies will also tell you that capitalism as we know it in the West today, primarily governed by shareholder short-term profits, has never been their main goal and, in the West, is seen as fast running out of steam. We are now beginning to see a shift in business practices where employees, suppliers, partners, communities, customers, the planet and the environment are all stakeholders and just as important as shareholders and management. The Japanese will tell you that a ‘mesh’ of all these ‘building blocks’ makes for better business and society, but also leads to greater company success in the long term. This Japanese approach to capitalism has regularly been referred to as “collective capitalism”. Western business leaders are now adopting parts of this approach, in the effort to make better and more sustainable practices by integrating economics and ethics.


Individualism seems to be on the vane too, with employees less interested in pursuing higher salaries, preferring instead better working practices and commitments by their employers for better work-life balance. Millennials want their employers to be more aligned with their own values and vision – even more so since the onset of the pandemic. They are more about emotional, rather than financial rewards. This then takes us to the way capitalism has been evolving since the industrial age began, and it is so encouraging to see that employees and the environment are taking centre-stage for a change. Businesses are now looking into how to profitably solve the problems encountered by people and the planet, something called “business with purpose”. Theoreticians are calling for businesses to identify what their purpose is, and how they can add value to society. So, the new face of capitalism – let’s call it a ‘human’ face – is expected to work toward bettering society on the whole. No one individual or company can change society – but many, together, can make a


lasting difference. Svetlana Josifovska, Editor


Editor Svetlana Josifovska Tel: 01732 883392


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