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If it takes 50 automation engineers to figure out how to automate a factory... once they figure this out, it doesn't need to be figured out again. (Not a big pr

If it takes 50 automation engineers to figure out how to automate a factory... once they figure this out, it doesn't need to be figured out again. (Not a big problem for them, there's always another problem to solve.) But not only is the entire factory out of work... all factories doing the same task are. If someone perfects a shelf-stocker, it doesn't matter that they needed the help of 1500 engineers... at that point, all grocery stores need far fewer employees. So does Walmart and Target. Even those crappy little stores hanging on by a thread... if they can scrape together the $50,000 for a robot, that's what they'll do. These things only have to be figured out once.

dragontamer 12y ago
It'd take 50 automation engineers a year to figure out how to automate a single step in a factory... just in time for the product redesign that may make the step irrelevant. These things may have to be redesigned from scratch every time a product is updated. iPhones don't have all of their screws, screens or cables in the same spot from revision-to-revision. You can only automate product development when things barely change.
- altcognito 12y ago
  > It'd take 50 automation engineers a year to figure out how to automate a single step in a factory.. Higher levels of abstraction make the process easier. What was nearly impossible to automate 10 years ago has become nearly commonplace today. The pace of this abstraction is only increasing as the availability of robotics increases.
- Istof 12y ago
  I doubt that but like everything else better tools will make this process more efficient...
- jacquesm 12y ago
  I've seen SMD pick-and-place robots at work that would make you believe you're living in a science fiction novel. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRu02F6AOmg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRu02F6AOmg For example. There are faster ones but with this one you can still follow the action. (est. about 8000 cph, 20K cph is available right now and is too fast to follow directly, you'd need to videotape it and then slow down the movie, it places 6 parts per second, when you look at one up close it looks like parts simply appear on the board out of nowhere). Not all that long ago that work would have been done by a small army of people, and that board would have been 10 times the size. Automation works iteratively, after enough steps it becomes worth it to design to the tooling rather than the other way around. So at some point your phone won't have screws or cables, and the screen will be sandwiched right on top of the board if that's the most economical. Cables are a source of unreliability anyway and screws are made for dis-assembly whereas the trend is to concentrate on the assembly phase with dis-assembly (and repair) becoming ever more difficult. Reballing BGA's is so much fun.
  - dragontamer 12y ago
    PCB creation has been extremely automated for a long time now. Between pick-and-place (around since the 1980s) and reflow soldering (auto-magic soldering), its safe to say that PCBs have been automated for the last 30 years at very least. So yes, its impressive that modern pick-and-place is so fast, but really, it was a solved problem that has only become "more solved" as the years have passed. In contrast, actual _assembly_ work is still very human based. The iPhone is famous for this. There are exceptions of course (the Sony Walkman was famous for being a purely automatic design from start to finish... the Tesla Car is mostly automated IIRC as well). But the typical products of the modern person (iPhones and Ford Cars) are still largely assembled in human assembly lines.

dragontamer 12y ago

It'd take 50 automation engineers a year to figure out how to automate a single step in a factory... just in time for the product redesign that may make the step irrelevant. These things may have to be redesigned from scratch every time a product is updated. iPhones don't have all of their screws, screens or cables in the same spot from revision-to-revision. You can only automate product development when things barely change.

altcognito 12y ago
> It'd take 50 automation engineers a year to figure out how to automate a single step in a factory.. Higher levels of abstraction make the process easier. What was nearly impossible to automate 10 years ago has become nearly commonplace today. The pace of this abstraction is only increasing as the availability of robotics increases.
Istof 12y ago
I doubt that but like everything else better tools will make this process more efficient...
jacquesm 12y ago
I've seen SMD pick-and-place robots at work that would make you believe you're living in a science fiction novel. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRu02F6AOmg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRu02F6AOmg For example. There are faster ones but with this one you can still follow the action. (est. about 8000 cph, 20K cph is available right now and is too fast to follow directly, you'd need to videotape it and then slow down the movie, it places 6 parts per second, when you look at one up close it looks like parts simply appear on the board out of nowhere). Not all that long ago that work would have been done by a small army of people, and that board would have been 10 times the size. Automation works iteratively, after enough steps it becomes worth it to design to the tooling rather than the other way around. So at some point your phone won't have screws or cables, and the screen will be sandwiched right on top of the board if that's the most economical. Cables are a source of unreliability anyway and screws are made for dis-assembly whereas the trend is to concentrate on the assembly phase with dis-assembly (and repair) becoming ever more difficult. Reballing BGA's is so much fun.
- dragontamer 12y ago
  PCB creation has been extremely automated for a long time now. Between pick-and-place (around since the 1980s) and reflow soldering (auto-magic soldering), its safe to say that PCBs have been automated for the last 30 years at very least. So yes, its impressive that modern pick-and-place is so fast, but really, it was a solved problem that has only become "more solved" as the years have passed. In contrast, actual _assembly_ work is still very human based. The iPhone is famous for this. There are exceptions of course (the Sony Walkman was famous for being a purely automatic design from start to finish... the Tesla Car is mostly automated IIRC as well). But the typical products of the modern person (iPhones and Ford Cars) are still largely assembled in human assembly lines.