Factory replaces 90% of workers with robots. Production rises by 250%

[bl8d]

Re: Factory replaces 90% of workers with robots. Production rises by 250%

Recently CBS 60 Minutes had a feature on autonomous drones where a swarm of military drones can communicate with each others and make their own decisions, including the decision to 'neutralize' a human being.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-autonomous-drones-set-to-revolutionize-military-technology/

The moral question is: Should robots be given the capability to unilaterally - without human intervention - decide and act to take out human lives? And where does it end?

This is like science fiction becoming reality.

Currently there's nuclear treaty in place, soon enough, there will be robot treaty.

The ominous overtones in that link are scary.

Operation Perdix-"12 Days Before Christmas."
The Partridge gift that keeps on giving, should Nuts and Dolts run the show.

[crunch27]

Re: Factory replaces 90% of workers with robots. Production rises by 250%

My sister in law just recently bought a Mexican made Q5. I looked at a YouTube of the new Mexican plant and it was amazing the way they put cars together these days. Not very much human involvement.

On another note, I wonder why GM is shipping those jobs from Ingersoll to Mexico. Could it be Ontario's HIGH energy costs????? Takes a lot of electrical power to run these robots.

[multimut]

Re: Factory replaces 90% of workers with robots. Production rises by 250%

On another note, I wonder why GM is shipping those jobs from Ingersoll to Mexico. Could it be Ontario's HIGH energy costs????? Takes a lot of electrical power to run these robots.

You betcha. As I've posted many times before, the McGuinty/Wynne Liberals have been the worst government in the history of Canada. They have completely screwed up the Electricity sector and have left Ontario with the highest sub-sovereign debt in the world (making interest on the debt one of the biggest expenditures even in the current low interest rate environment -- you will shudder at what happens when rates rise).

I'm sorry to say that the impact of this mismanagement will be felt for decades, and will be very costly and difficult to fix.

Here are two articles on impact on manufacturing jobs:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/judeclemente/2016/03/30/ontarios-high-electricity-prices-crush-business/#ccb789c2fa83

https://www.thestar.com/business/2016/12/20/toronto-company-opening-us-plant-because-of-rising-ontario-electricity-rates.html

[bogeytrain]

Re: Factory replaces 90% of workers with robots. Production rises by 250%

Manufacturing output in the US has doubled since 1984 but with 1/3 fewer workers.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-manufacturing-dead-output-has-doubled-in-three-decades-2016-03-28

[bl8d]

Re: Factory replaces 90% of workers with robots. Production rises by 250%

Manufacturing output in the US has doubled since 1984 but with 1/3 fewer workers.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-...des-2016-03-28

here is the crux(from your link)

American manufacturing isn’t dead by any means. But the loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs has devastated the working class, and made reaching the American dream more difficult. Technological advancements and the rise of low-skilled manufacturing in China and other developing nations mean that fewer Americans work in factories, just as technological advancements 100 years ago meant that fewer Americans worked on farms.
Most Americans now work in service-producing industries, where inequalities in opportunities, skills and incomes are more apparent. Recreating an economy that provides equitable growth won’t be easy, especially if we pine for the good old days when a third of us worked at the factory.
Those days are gone for good, even if U.S. factories still churn out lots of items that are Made in the USA.

[pendlebg]

Re: Factory replaces 90% of workers with robots. Production rises by 250%

Production rose by 250% while defects dropped by 80%. Virtually any repeatable task in a controlled environment can be completed by software and or a robot.

My thinking is that all future employment for those who do not have an applicable degree will be in the low wage service sector. This will especially impact manufacturing towns such as Oshawa.

Ideal careers going forward will be in artificial intelligence software design, and I'd add data analytics, where one makes sense of large data sets to improve production or profitability.

I wonder where this will leave low cost manufacturing countries such as Mexico and perhaps China. Once a robot can do it cheaper than your low cost workers, manufacturing will return to the country of origin.


http://www.zmescience.com/other/econ...bots-03022017/

This is a key point that is often overlooked. The combination of those who develop and maintain the technology alongside proximity to market begin to become more important that labour cost as you reduce the human labour cost as a % of your manufacturing costs.

Those most at risk are low cost labour countries without a support or research and development base (and the accompanying high tech education infrastructure). If the only competitive advantage you offer is low labour costs you will be a loser when that matters less.

The real question is who will invest the most in education and support for the labour to maintain and improve the technology? Those countries in my mind have a more favourable long term economic base. It is this reason I have long been critical of any Canadian economic policy that favours the water and wood economy at the expense of education, research and development.

The US has a clear advantage in this, their question is how to maintain it.

[Secam]

Re: Factory replaces 90% of workers with robots. Production rises by 250%

The real question is who will invest the most in education and support for the labour to maintain and improve the technology? Those countries in my mind have a more favourable long term economic base. It is this reason I have long been critical of any Canadian economic policy that favours the water and wood economy at the expense of education, research and development.

The US has a clear advantage in this, their question is how to maintain it.

I think that our schools do a good job at putting out world class engineering and computer science grads. Where the US has a huge advantage over us is the availability of venture capital. It's difficult for a Canadian hi-tech start-up to get any kind of funding.

Obama took a jab at Russia saying "they don't make anything that the world wants". Hopefully that won't be our future as well.

[golfinseb]

Re: Factory replaces 90% of workers with robots. Production rises by 250%

No job is immune, degrees mean nothing.

[bl8d]

Re: Factory replaces 90% of workers with robots. Production rises by 250%

I think that our schools do a good job at putting out world class engineering and computer science grads. Where the US has a huge advantage over us is the availability of venture capital. It's difficult for a Canadian hi-tech start-up to get any kind of funding.

Obama took a jab at Russia saying "they don't make anything that the world wants". Hopefully that won't be our future as well.

Russia's stalled economy is puzzling with its highly skilled and educated workforce that is equal to any. Yet omnipotent Oligarchs drag the populace around as if they were serfs, proving education is not the answer without a larger vision.

Kennedy inspired the US to step on the moon in less than 8 years.

[Secam]

Re: Factory replaces 90% of workers with robots. Production rises by 250%

Russia's stalled economy is puzzling with its highly skilled and educated workforce that is equal to any.

I've read that this is why so much cyber crime is centered in Russia. They crank out great computer scientists, but have no real industry for them to work in.

Germany seems to have it right. Their school system channels students from a young age into studies that will match their skills, as well as maximize their chances of gaining meaningful employment.

[Arthur Dailey]

Re: Factory replaces 90% of workers with robots. Production rises by 250%

In the industry that I work with, this is commonplace in Europe. Our German competition will have 1 highly skilled worker responsible for the operation of 2 or 3 production machines/robots.

We have 2 machine operators per machine.

So we have 4 to 6 workers for every 1 in Germany. The German machine operator does however get paid at least double what our operators get paid.

One problem is the amount of electricity consumed by the machinery.
The other is that in the German system, if one machine goes down, you lose considerable production time.