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How Automation Is Changing the World, and the Workforce

attendees at engineering lecture

At transportation terminals, automation is boosting productivity and creating safer work environments. In the medical device industry, it’s advancing product development and letting employees learn new technologies. And in aerospace, it’s leading to new manufacturing processes and a future age of autonomous aircraft.

At Thursday’s Fall Engineering Distinguished Lecture, representatives from all three industries shared how automation is changing the world—and the workforce.

“This is one of those topics that is very pertinent—automation, robotics, artificial intelligence—all the things we live with today,” said moderator Rolando Saldana, vice president of engineering at Qualcomm. “Going forward, we’re also seeing that industry is moving forward with automation. And these (speakers) are the folks who are putting together the systems.” Continue reading “How Automation Is Changing the World, and the Workforce”

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Is Southern California Ready for El Nino?

DLS-jackson.Speakers at the CSULB College of Engineering Distinguished Lecture Series Thursday agreed that a strong El Nino is brewing, and Southern California should be braced for higher-than-average rainfall this winter and spring. Although engineers and planners have learned much from past El Nino events, large-scale infrastructure improvements are still needed to prevent severe damage from future storms.

El Nino events are classified as weak, moderate, or strong, and usually peak in February. This year’s is strong, said Mark Jackson, meteorologist in charge of the Oxnard National Weather Service office, although it remains to be seen how many inches of rain it will deliver. “I’m not going to give my exact forecast for how many inches of rain we’re going to get. There are too many microphones and cameras here,” he said. Continue reading “Is Southern California Ready for El Nino?”

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U.S. Manufacturing: Technologies for Recapturing Global Advancement

Technologies for Recapturing Global Advancement

Did you know that if the top 500 U.S.-based manufacturing companies were counted as an independent nation, their total revenue would rank them as the third largest economy in the world! Yet, the US manufacturing sector has experienced substantial job losses at an alarming rate over the past two decades. Since the historical peak in the late 1970s, fewer and fewer jobs have been created in the manufacturing sector. In fact employment in manufacturing is now at its lowest since 1950.

Engineering Distinguished Lecture Series