With changing technologies, some area manufacturers say there’s no doubt the amount of automation they use within their facilities will increase in years to come.

  “It’s a game-changer,” Kevin Ward, plant manager at Kimball Hospitality, said of automation. Kimball Hospitality is in the midst of a $4.4 million, two-year project — the 16th Street Realignment Project — which will install state-of-the-art manufacturing equipment in the plant, allowing the company to automate some of the labor performed by employees, such as moving product from station to station.

  Automation is technology that automatically controls a process, such as tech involved with the manufacturing of a product. A recent study by Ball State University’s Center for Business and Economic Research sought to find out how communities will be affected by automation. The study, “How vulnerable are American communities to automation, trade & urbanization?” suggests that about half of U.S. jobs are at risk because of automation. It puts about 59 percent of Dubois County jobs at risk.

  “As a workplace is automated, it is unlikely that all occupations will be eliminated,” the study concludes. “Rather, some jobs will be created, some will be destroyed, and others will be unaffected.”