I think most folks would be surprised by some of the variables that effect productivity. Robotics typically effect "efficiency" and/or "quality", and can often effect both direct and indirect labor. In other words, if a Company latches onto a worthwhile robotic improvement, the effect would be to reduce the number of hours needed to accomplish manufacturing, product-development, and/or administrative tasks. Some Companies are very labor intensive, while others are often at the mercy of their raw-material suppliers and purchased-parts suppliers. Other costs that effect productivity are healthcare-insurance costs, taxes, maintenance, R&D, and regulatory costs. Productivity isn't simply a matter of hourly-rates and labor hours.
Smart Companies carefully calculate the effects of robotic projects before implementing them. Effective robotic projects reduce labor hours. Smart Companies plan how to make best use of that increased efficiency. Do we reduce the number of workers because our market's not expected to expand? Do we maintain the same number of workers because we know we can expand our production because we're more competitive due to lower unit-costs? Is our potential market large enough to allow us to add workers, since our costs are now more competitive? Based on the decreased hours needed to produce product, can we pay workers more per-hour while maintaining or increasing our profit margin?
I walked-through a theortical example of a Company's cost structure to gauge the effects of some variables on the Company's productivity. The calculations are theoretical, since the costs for material, labor, G&A, benefits, etc., vary enormously from one industry to another.
Reducing ONLY the hourly rate paid to direct hourly workers by +10% increased productivity by +1.3%. Increasing ONLY direct-labor efficiency by +10%, increased productivity by +1.5%. Increasing ONLY the overhead-burdens to reflect the cost of Obamacare, DECREASED productivity by -2%. I'd loved to have tried to account for regulatory costs, but there are no worthwhile data that I've found. Allowing politicians to construct laws, the effects of which they are ignorant, is a great way to screw business productivity.
