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Toyota has recognised that if you only have robots then innovation stops, because you forget the skills that the robots are replacing. Experience in manipulati
by femto 13y ago
Toyota has recognised that if you only have robots then innovation stops, because you forget the skills that the robots are replacing.
Experience in manipulating materials, and doing it manually, is a valuable thing. Toyota isn't going to start replacing robots with humans, but the humans need an in depth understanding of what the robots are doing, so they can then improve what the robots are doing. The best way to learn what the robots are doing is to do it: get in there and watch how the metal flows, how it reacts to heat and so on.
This has the potential to be an engineer's utopia. Presumably the valuable thing isn't what the "gods" make (the robots make the stuff that sells for money), but what they learn during the making process. Thus the "gods" are free to work on things that won't immediately sell. Imagine a job where the brief was "make whatever you like, just be sure to learn a lot while you do it". It sounds like Toyota is rediscovering the golden era of the Industrial Lab (Bell, IBM, ... ).
- nickpinkston 13y agoThis was the point of Toyota's LF-A program right?
- hkmurakami 13y agoAlso, it works well in Japan and for Toyota in particular because of the lack of labor mobility there. And I don't just mean Japan's general lack thereof; rather, I'm pointing to the fact that (1) in Aichi prefecture, the only major Auto maker is Toyota (whereas Hamamatsu and Tokyo regions have several), (2) selling a house in the countryside (which the surrounding regions of Toyota city is) is always a money losing proposition in Japan, making a long distance move very difficult, and (3) once you are an employee at one of the Toyota Group companies, you cannot change jobs to another Toyota Group company. The "Gods" that you nurture will stay with you for perpetuity (or retirement) under these conditions. disclosure: I was a researcher at one of the Group companies.
- w1ntermute 13y agoWages are shockingly low in Japan. A junior developer in Tokyo would be lucky to make $45k (at a domestic firm).