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"One can hire lots of workers for the money. Especially during recession." When you hire a person, you have to pay them continuously for their work. Once you

"One can hire lots of workers for the money. Especially during recession." When you hire a person, you have to pay them continuously for their work. Once you pay for a robot, you don't owe it a salary. There's obviously other factors - ongoing costs to keep robots going, but also robots never call in sick and can sometimes work faster or more precisely than a numan.

twic 6y ago
You have to depreciate that purchase. How long do these robots last? And, as a sibling comment points out, you have to pay for maintenance and operating costs. The capital price of robots is kind of irrelevant, what's the annualised TCO?
- cookiecaper 6y ago
  And automated systems require babysitters. How long does a 100% robot-controlled factory operate when its supervisors are in quarantine? While it's true that the robots aren't concerned with infection, I doubt that a pandemic-style shutdown can really be fully averted, even if the manufacturing process is "100%" automatic.
  - tialaramex 6y ago
    One human maintaining a factory full of robots is obeying social distancing constraints. They can't infect the robots, and the robots can't infect them. Unlike a factory full of low-paid workers this is actually very low risk for the spread of infection. We actually get to see a small model of this on farms. Once upon a time every farm had dozens or even hundreds of workers. Whether planting and harvesting corn or milking cows, it was all done by hand, and it took a lot of people working in close proximity. Today's farmer has a lot of automation, which means far fewer people. One person in a harvester can harvest a field of wheat, maybe a truck drives out to them once in a while, exchanges hand signals, nobody's close enough to get infected. A couple of people can handle milking a herd of cows, they touch the cows but no need to get close to each other. No problem keeping appropriate distances. Not every farm is like that, it's going to be a problem for fruit harvesting for example where you'd usually bring in a lot of temporary workers once a year. But these systems don't have to change everything. If there are six factories in your city, and three of them remain unchanged but the other three just become a bunch of robots, with the only human on site one mechanic and a security guard that's an enormous change.
vorpalhex 6y ago
You do have to pay for a maintenance contract and part supply chain. Even if the robot keeps working your business may not legally be able to operate outside a certain window if you're public facing (eg a clothing store). There are times the math works out for the robot but it's not very often. Keep in mind the robots need to be managed - someone has to make sure they're working and be able to take over when they go down.
- lostapathy 6y ago
  My point wasn't that it's a slam dunk - my point was just that "$100k buys a lot of labor in a recession" is a strawman in the other directions. Industrial automation is only getting cheaper, more capable, and easier to use with every passing year. Things you "know" from even a couple years ago don't apply today. The rate of progress is pretty incredible.
  - lnsru 6y ago
    Could you, please, provide any examples about current progress? Autonomous ground vehicles are there, but paths are planned drawing lines on the floor. It’s not that far from carts with ropes from 1970s.
    - lostapathy 6y ago
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E05GSshnMOM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E05GSshnMOM This is the start of a multi-video series where a relatively small shop talks about implementing a robot in his factory today. Notably, he tried (and gave up on it) just 4 years ago. I know those aren't robots walking around the floor - but that level of automation to load/unload parts is a huge thing to "keep the CNC machines fed" in more and more factories. Look up Fanuc robots on youtube for tons of examples of automation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKrlXyLQbwM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKrlXyLQbwM is a cool example of 2 robots on a rail servicing 4 CNC machines. What's neat here is that it's taking parts from machine to machine to work through all manufacturing steps. None of this is exactly that "high end", either. Plenty of high end hobbyists/micro-businesses run Robodrills (like the last video) in their home garage. The UR robot in the first video I linked is super accessible as well and showing up in more and more small (<10 employee) machine shops.

twic 6y ago

You have to depreciate that purchase. How long do these robots last? And, as a sibling comment points out, you have to pay for maintenance and operating costs. The capital price of robots is kind of irrelevant, what's the annualised TCO?

cookiecaper 6y ago
And automated systems require babysitters. How long does a 100% robot-controlled factory operate when its supervisors are in quarantine? While it's true that the robots aren't concerned with infection, I doubt that a pandemic-style shutdown can really be fully averted, even if the manufacturing process is "100%" automatic.
- tialaramex 6y ago
  One human maintaining a factory full of robots is obeying social distancing constraints. They can't infect the robots, and the robots can't infect them. Unlike a factory full of low-paid workers this is actually very low risk for the spread of infection. We actually get to see a small model of this on farms. Once upon a time every farm had dozens or even hundreds of workers. Whether planting and harvesting corn or milking cows, it was all done by hand, and it took a lot of people working in close proximity. Today's farmer has a lot of automation, which means far fewer people. One person in a harvester can harvest a field of wheat, maybe a truck drives out to them once in a while, exchanges hand signals, nobody's close enough to get infected. A couple of people can handle milking a herd of cows, they touch the cows but no need to get close to each other. No problem keeping appropriate distances. Not every farm is like that, it's going to be a problem for fruit harvesting for example where you'd usually bring in a lot of temporary workers once a year. But these systems don't have to change everything. If there are six factories in your city, and three of them remain unchanged but the other three just become a bunch of robots, with the only human on site one mechanic and a security guard that's an enormous change.

vorpalhex 6y ago

You do have to pay for a maintenance contract and part supply chain. Even if the robot keeps working your business may not legally be able to operate outside a certain window if you're public facing (eg a clothing store). There are times the math works out for the robot but it's not very often. Keep in mind the robots need to be managed - someone has to make sure they're working and be able to take over when they go down.

lostapathy 6y ago
My point wasn't that it's a slam dunk - my point was just that "$100k buys a lot of labor in a recession" is a strawman in the other directions. Industrial automation is only getting cheaper, more capable, and easier to use with every passing year. Things you "know" from even a couple years ago don't apply today. The rate of progress is pretty incredible.
- lnsru 6y ago
  Could you, please, provide any examples about current progress? Autonomous ground vehicles are there, but paths are planned drawing lines on the floor. It’s not that far from carts with ropes from 1970s.
  - lostapathy 6y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E05GSshnMOM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E05GSshnMOM This is the start of a multi-video series where a relatively small shop talks about implementing a robot in his factory today. Notably, he tried (and gave up on it) just 4 years ago. I know those aren't robots walking around the floor - but that level of automation to load/unload parts is a huge thing to "keep the CNC machines fed" in more and more factories. Look up Fanuc robots on youtube for tons of examples of automation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKrlXyLQbwM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKrlXyLQbwM is a cool example of 2 robots on a rail servicing 4 CNC machines. What's neat here is that it's taking parts from machine to machine to work through all manufacturing steps. None of this is exactly that "high end", either. Plenty of high end hobbyists/micro-businesses run Robodrills (like the last video) in their home garage. The UR robot in the first video I linked is super accessible as well and showing up in more and more small (<10 employee) machine shops.