It's likely cheaper to have people that to automate further. One problem with automation is that if you are making bespoke products, engineering and capital cos

It's likely cheaper to have people that to automate further. One problem with automation is that if you are making bespoke products, engineering and capital costs for the automation cost more than a person. A printing press operator costs ~$67k/year ($45k salary + benefits + etc). Automating a step can easily cost $100-200k, plus 10-20% of that in yearly maintenance, so if the task being performed is changing more than once every few years its cheaper for a person to do it. Humans are very good at tasks involving hand-eye coordination and machines are good at extremely repetitive tasks. Most of the people in the article seemed to be doing tasks that automation is not yet good at. The book cover had standard CMYK printing plus some special inks to help it stand out. Automation could easily check the CMYK inks, but not the special inks, as they likely fall out of the sRGB color range that off the shelf cameras are able to sense (you likely would have to use several BW cameras with special filters).