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Thank you! That’s exactly what a guy from Volkswagen plant told me. They don’t need a 99,9% working robot, because it’s not enough when manufacturing one car ea

by lnsru 8y ago

Thank you! That’s exactly what a guy from Volkswagen plant told me. They don’t need a 99,9% working robot, because it’s not enough when manufacturing one car each minute. The robot might be cheaper to buy, but they cannot afford to stop the line for such errors.

xvilka 8y ago
It is just a matter of time before better, more precise and accurate robots will be created.
- carlmr 8y ago
  Yes, but you still have the problem of bringing this process into your production line and finding out how it makes you more efficient or better. Musk also had to learn some lessons Toyota learned years ago, because he trusted a bit too much in automation. If you want to automate something, you need to know exactly all the corner cases, every step of what the human is doing to make it work. The robots are precise enough, but it's often not that easy to describe the tasks to them.
  - lnsru 8y ago
    How are these robots programmed? Just a sequence of position movements and affector actions depending on few digital inputs of light curtains or sensors?
    - bluedino 8y ago
      In the most simple cases, yes. Parametric programming is popular, where you can define an item and then scale it in a number of factors and only need one program for thousands of possible premutations of that item. Think about a company that produces screws, they don't have a program for every possible screw they make. Same goes for a more complicated item like a metal box with a door on it.
- linuslarsson 8y ago
  Precision is not the biggest issue here. There are very precise robots out there. The big issue is improvement of standardized work. If you automate early you get tethered by subpar standards. This is natural when you have workers: you iterate work instructions and what tools to use together as a group. This is basically how Toyota is so good at producing: every worker know what to do and when to do it. They haven't always been like this; they have slowly iterated into what they are today. Improving on work instructions for a robot is tideaus at best, and really, really costly as a worst case: you either re-program, or you're forced to reinvest if the robot isn't capable of the new movements/steps.

by lnsru 8y ago

xvilka 8y ago

It is just a matter of time before better, more precise and accurate robots will be created.

carlmr 8y ago
Yes, but you still have the problem of bringing this process into your production line and finding out how it makes you more efficient or better. Musk also had to learn some lessons Toyota learned years ago, because he trusted a bit too much in automation. If you want to automate something, you need to know exactly all the corner cases, every step of what the human is doing to make it work. The robots are precise enough, but it's often not that easy to describe the tasks to them.
- lnsru 8y ago
  How are these robots programmed? Just a sequence of position movements and affector actions depending on few digital inputs of light curtains or sensors?
  - bluedino 8y ago
    In the most simple cases, yes. Parametric programming is popular, where you can define an item and then scale it in a number of factors and only need one program for thousands of possible premutations of that item. Think about a company that produces screws, they don't have a program for every possible screw they make. Same goes for a more complicated item like a metal box with a door on it.
linuslarsson 8y ago
Precision is not the biggest issue here. There are very precise robots out there. The big issue is improvement of standardized work. If you automate early you get tethered by subpar standards. This is natural when you have workers: you iterate work instructions and what tools to use together as a group. This is basically how Toyota is so good at producing: every worker know what to do and when to do it. They haven't always been like this; they have slowly iterated into what they are today. Improving on work instructions for a robot is tideaus at best, and really, really costly as a worst case: you either re-program, or you're forced to reinvest if the robot isn't capable of the new movements/steps.