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BL Premium reports that Volkswagen Group Africa chair and MD Martina Biene says the group has taken a deliberate decision not to automate certain areas of its functions, even in instances where the car manufacturer is in the position to deploy robots, as a means of preserving jobs in SA.
“We could have already automated much more than we have done. If you look at our German plant and our plant [in SA], there is much more manual labour. It was a deliberate decision to do so [to protect jobs],” Biene advised. She went on to note: “Of course, it must remain a business case. Labour costs are good in SA. We also want to play it [automating processes] responsibly. I don’t see AI replacing manufacturing anytime soon. We are embracing AI. It does a lot of good things.” The group employs about 4,000 people in SA.
Biene said it was not always easy to direct investments to SA. “When I pitch an [investment] idea, my biggest competition is not the other eight manufacturers in SA. The biggest competition is, first of all, internally, with 110 other Volkswagen plants around the world, and they all have ideas on where the group should invest,” Biene explained. She added that the competition landscape has grown: “We now compete with cars coming from India and China and it sometimes feels like the huge advantage from the past is not there anymore.”
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Kabelo Khumalo at BusinessLive (subscriber access only)
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