CaptainNemo wrote: ↑Sun Oct 13, 2019 1:06 am Basically, the education system is designed for the 20th century, not the 21st. The curriculums are not relevant enough, and the modes of teaching are outdated; they CAN'T recruit and retain teachers, not because the pay isn't enough but the pressure and bureacracy is excessive. The system, at least in the UK, and probably in many other places, is totally broken. I took my kids out of it, to train them myself, but then, I have that privilege of having taught myself years ago whilst playing truant from school.

CEOCambodiaNews wrote: ↑Thu Oct 10, 2019 1:26 am Article from today's SEA Globe magazine:

Advances in automation are fuelling fears that the rise of robots could drive millions of Asian factory jobs back to the West
WHY WE WROTE THIS: Because technological progress can change the shape of whole economies.
Andrew Haffner
October 9, 2019
Manufacturing change
Fully automated production lines could fundamentally change the face of Asia's manufacturing industry

Even on a warm Friday afternoon, the floor stammers with activity at Raytec’s garment factory in the west of the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh.

Some of the final products made here are stamped with logos for small-town organisations in the US heartland; others are limited-edition items for household name brands such as eyewear designer Oakley.

But not everything needs a human eye or hand, factory manager Kim van der Weerd said, nodding at a nearby computer screen.
“This used to be somebody’s job,” she said.

As she spoke, a graphic designer double-checked a virtual layout of garment panels arranged like puzzle pieces on what would eventually be a real-life scroll of paper.

While it gets approved by human staff before going to print, the arrangement was made entirely by a computer programme tasked with laying out as many panels as possible on a piece of material, maximising the number of eventual cut-outs while reducing waste.

Now, thanks to the help of programmes like this one used widely in the industry, the work of the arranger has been completely automated – though things still look a little more traditional in other rooms of the factory.

Sewers perch before their machines as fabric blurs between hand and needle while another group of workers sorts items by hand into individual orders, counting out whimsically patterned covers for high-end ski goggles and setting them aside for shipping. Elsewhere, staff stitch together apparel for Cambodia-based garment manufacturer Pactics – custom-printed goods for clients ranging from local sports teams to international brands selling athleisure goods such as leggings and lightweight tops.
Raytec staff put the final stitch to a work week at their factory near the Phnom Penh International Airport. Photo: Andrew Haffner

This kind of scene could be the future for the apparel sector, which in recent decades has forged a long supply chain linking low-wage producers, mostly in Asia, with higher-income consumers in Europe, Japan and North America.

But major apparel companies could soon have another option coming online. That potential difference-maker revolves entirely around automation, a process that replaces human labour with that of a machine. For the garment industry, a fully robotic manufacturing line could in theory work relentlessly spinning out clothing for as long as the power stays on.

They’re not much for personality, but robots never go on strike. Nor do they protest wages or working conditions or demand workers’ rights – the type of street action that has helped push Cambodia’s government into repeated local minimum wage hikes in recent years.

There are about 100 workers total at the Raytec factory doing everything from sewing to security. Busy as they are, they’re but a fragment of the workforce of approximately 800,000 people stitching up the Kingdom’s growing apparel sector. An International Labour Organization (ILO) report published in August stated the textiles, clothing and footwear (TCF) sector exports marked $6.3 billion and accounted for 78 percent of Cambodia’s total merchandise exports in 2015.

Across Asia, the ILO wrote, the TCF sector employs upwards of 40 million people making about $601 billion in exported goods.

But the rise of automation is leading many to question whether most of these jobs will even exist in a few years. And while automation is touted as bringing about an imminent revolution in manufacturing, it isn’t a new concept, with the earliest forays into machine production in the textile manufacturing that marked the early days of the Industrial Revolution in the United Kingdom. Robot-assisted manufacturing has only grown since then and has come to form a pillar of modern productivity, perhaps most visibly in the automotive industry.
Full article: https://southeastasiaglobe.com/what-aut ... facturers/