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> Just a few humans were present to deal with a handful of tasks -- two to feed bare motherboards to the line, and two to package the finished consoles. Maybe
by smoe 6y ago
> Just a few humans were present to deal with a handful of tasks -- two to feed bare motherboards to the line, and two to package the finished consoles.
Maybe I'm just ignorant, but, especially the first task, seems rather trivial compared to what they achieved with their robots? Even the second one, If I remember correctly Amazon does/did this manually because every single package is different and no robot flexible enough, but I assume in Sonys case packages are all exactly the same. Doesn't sound a whole lot harder than plugging in the cables.
So why wouldn't they automatize those steps as well?
- 946789987649 6y agoPossibly cost factor? Hiring 4 non-skilled people may have been cheaper than adding the extra machinery.
- aidenn0 6y agoLoading into the sort of packaging used for electronics is definitely hard to automate. For low margin products it used to be universal that boxed items were manufactured where labor was cheap, and that's for very simple to load items. Automation is improving at a rapid rate though. I've definitely seen automated boxers for some simple to load items start to show up.