In 1989, the MIT Commission on Industrial Productivity produced the Made in America report. One of the recommendations of Made in America was to establish the Industrial Performance Center (IPC) to carry on the interdisciplinary investigations of industrial productivity, innovation, and competitiveness that the Commission had begun. Established in 1991, with the help of a major grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the IPC has brought together faculty and students from all five MIT Schools in research collaborations on industry. Since its inception, the faculty, students and affiliates of the IPC have produced numerous books, articles, papers and other publications that have advanced the understanding of strategic, technological, and organizational developments in a broad range of industries.

Report | September 30, 2024

Automation from the Worker’s Perspective: Executive Summary

Ben Armstrong

Ben Armstrong is Executive Director of the Industrial Performance Center and co-leads the Work of the Future Initiative.

Valerie K. Chen

PhD Candidate, Interactive Robotics Group, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Alex Cuellar

PhD Candidate, Interactive Robotics Group, MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics

Alex Forsey-Smerek

PhD Candidate, Interactive Robotics Group, MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics

Julie Shah

Julie Shah is Faculty Director of the Industrial Performance Center and co-leads the Work of the Future Initiative.

Common narratives about automation often pit new technologies against workers. The introduction of advanced machine tools, industrial robots, and AI have all been met with concern that technological progress will mean fewer jobs. However, workers themselves offer a more optimistic, nuanced perspective. Drawing on a far-reaching 2024 survey of more than 9,000 workers across nine […]

Working Paper | September 30, 2024

Automation from the Worker’s Perspective

Ben Armstrong

Ben Armstrong is Executive Director of the Industrial Performance Center and co-leads the Work of the Future Initiative.

Valerie K. Chen

PhD Candidate, Interactive Robotics Group, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Alex Cuellar

PhD Candidate, Interactive Robotics Group, MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics

Alex Forsey-Smerek

PhD Candidate, Interactive Robotics Group, MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics

Julie Shah

Julie Shah is Faculty Director of the Industrial Performance Center and co-leads the Work of the Future Initiative.

Common narratives about automation often pit new technologies against workers. The introduction of advanced machine tools, industrial robots, and AI have all been met with concern that technological progress will mean fewer jobs. However, workers themselves offer a more optimistic, nuanced perspective. Drawing on a far-reaching 2024 survey of more than 9,000 workers across nine […]

Article | August 8, 2024

Implementing Generative AI in U.S. Hospital Systems

Ben Armstrong

Ben Armstrong is Executive Director of the Industrial Performance Center and co-leads the Work of the Future Initiative.

Kate Kellogg

Faculty Affiliate, Work of the Future

Retsef Levi

Faculty Affiliate, Work of the Future

Julie Shah

Julie Shah is Faculty Director of the Industrial Performance Center and co-leads the Work of the Future Initiative.

There has been widespread optimism that artificial intelligence (AI) applications can transform medical care, improving patient treatment and reducing administrative burdens for hospitals and clinicians. For patients, a healthcare system augmented by AI could mean less wait time due to optimal scheduling and resource allocation and higher-quality diagnostic and treatment decisions due to AI-driven capabilities, […]

Project | October 16, 2023

MIT Automation Clinic

Ben Armstrong

Ben Armstrong is Executive Director of the Industrial Performance Center and co-leads the Work of the Future Initiative.

Julie Shah

Julie Shah is Faculty Director of the Industrial Performance Center and co-leads the Work of the Future Initiative.

The Automation Clinic is an applied research and education program to understand how organizations make new technologies work in practice. MIT researchers and their partners work with organizations to learn the problems they aim to solve with new technologies, the challenges they face in deploying them, and the consequences for their workers, customers, and society. […]

Article | October 9, 2023

The State of Industrial Robotics: Emerging Technologies, Challenges, and Key Research Directions

Julie Shah

Julie Shah is Faculty Director of the Industrial Performance Center and co-leads the Work of the Future Initiative.

Lindsay Sanneman

Lindsay Sanneman is a PhD candidate in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT

Christopher Fourie

Christopher Fourie is a PhD candidate in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and a member of the Interactive Robotics Group.

Robotics and related technologies are central to the ongoing digitization and advancement of manufacturing. In recent years, a variety of strategic initiatives around the world including “Industry 4.0”, introduced in Germany in 2011 have aimed to improve and connect manufacturing technologies in order to optimize production processes.

Article | September 24, 2023

A Smarter Strategy for Using Robots

Ben Armstrong

Ben Armstrong is Executive Director of the Industrial Performance Center and co-leads the Work of the Future Initiative.

Julie Shah

Julie Shah is Faculty Director of the Industrial Performance Center and co-leads the Work of the Future Initiative.

Despite advances in automation technology, the promise of productive and flexible automation, with minimal involvement of human workers, is far from reality, for two main reasons. First, adoption of automation technology has been limited. Second, when firms do automate, what they gain in productivity they tend to lose in process flexibility, resulting in what the […]