One of the hardest lessons learned at Toyota, according to their management, is that fully automated assembly lines eliminate a crucial opportunity for human in

One of the hardest lessons learned at Toyota, according to their management, is that fully automated assembly lines eliminate a crucial opportunity for human ingenuity to intervene. That's why Toyota made a deliberate effort to retain and reintegrate 天才 engineers and mechanics on the line. From a Quartz article in 2014: So far, people taking back work done by robots at over 100 workspaces reduced waste in crankshaft production by 10%, and helped shorten the production line. Others improved axel production and cut costs for chassis parts. “We cannot simply depend on the machines that only repeat the same task over and over again,” project lead Mitsuru Kawai told Bloomberg. “To be the master of the machine, you have to have the knowledge and the skills to teach the machine.”