There's a drone flythrough of an Australian Plywood Factory from a year ago on YouTube[1], and it made me think: why would managers Segway around a factory in future[2] when they could have FPV drones with cameras and speakers and microphones to oversee everything that's happening from above, from the comfort of their office far away? Drones could have pre-set waypoints to fly to the interesting places or supervisor stations automatically, come back to charging stations automatically, do hourly flythroughs of preset routes for regular audit and inspections of production lines or warehouses, like CCTV cameras that can move.
It's going to be a no-fun future for a lot of people.
Because the primary purpose of managers walking of the floor isn’t observation and control, but rather understanding, communication, and very rarely changing something.
There’s nothing wrong with automated QC activities, but it’s not going to replacing walking the floor (assuming the floor isn’t a lights-out facility.)
It's going to be a no-fun future for a lot of people.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP-gTCp5Kac
[2] or golf cart, scooter, drive, walk. Segway was that kind of 'futuristic transportation'.