killer duck says:

Great, but once we are all replaced by robots who will actually buy what they make?

tom says:

There will be robots to repair the robots, and to design new robots…

rickem says:

I’ve seen robots work. I’ve seen them go nuts and destroy product. Call the tech and he says it can’t be doing that. Right. They are good at doing tedious, repetitive tasks, when they run properly. When they go haywire it can take days to get them back on line.

kjackman says:

Wow. I used to do all of this stuff for a living about 20 years ago. Surface mounting of components was already automated, but inserting the thru-hole parts, feeding the flow-soldering machine, clipping the leads, QC, testing, were all done by hand, and I did all those things myself at one time or another. We had a team of about 15 to 20 people. This robotic system is amazing.

Not shown: actual humans feeding the part hoppers and flow-solder machine, emptying out the trays of clipped leads, extracting clipped leads that flew into the robotic arm mechanism and seized it up; humans in the receiving dept. making sure the supplier shipped the 1A455 chip and not 1A455/b; humans reprogramming the robots every time a change is made; humans “holding the robots’ hands” every time the work product is picked up the wrong way or dropped…

I bet now they only need a team of 15 to 20 people to run the whole operation! 🙂 But with greater efficiency and (maybe) speed… although it looked like they could only process one unit at a time; our human team was much faster than this.

GregA says:

#8,

Not so, the machine I work on are not nearly this advanced, but just humble filling machines, and they automatically fill containers up to the top, no reprogramming is needed.

Also, I know from experience there are SMC fabs available that work from schematics and the operator isn’t involved in programming the g-code at all.

I have worked with a welding robot that the operator just dragged the welding tip along the seam to be welded, and then the operator just tells the robot to go, and the machine makes a perfect weld.

I know from my hobby cnc machine that for cabinet makers the software exists to just do a drawing of your kitchen cabinet system, and the software will work out the size of the parts to cut out, and nest the part file automagically.

I am certain that those types of software techniques are used on this assembly line, and those machines are working from schematics, rather than having some programmer somewhere write and edit g-code files every time a small change is made to the product.

At the same time, I have heard stories (never witnessed) robots going haywire and throwing engine blocks accross the factory. Also, I have more respect for my CNC router than I do a table saw. I never get near the router with the power on…

The0ne says:

I don’t see much advancement from the video compare to you high speed your pick and place machines. Yea, the arms look cool but it’s also very slow. There are wave machines that crank out many PCBs at a time. There are tray dispensers that are automatic. These aren’t, 95% sure, smart robots. Someone programs them like they do with pick and place machines to know what to do.

AdmFubar says:

oddly does this whole assembly process look ponderously slow???
there is a lot of movements going on with these robot arms.. th at gluing step looked inefficient. there should have been a nozzle for every glue point needed and the arm just moves the nozzles into place and applies the glue in one shot…

as for the rest of ya’s worried about what will happen to all the people who used to do this, this should sum that all up

http://tinyurl.com/create.php

heehee says:

In the workplace of the future there will be only two employees, a man and a dog. The man’s job will be to feed the dog. The dog’s job will be to bite the man if he tries to touch anything.

noname says:

It’s like the future predicted in the Bruce Willis movie “5th Element” when the character ZORG dropped the clean glass that shatter on the floor.

Kind of chilly!

ZORG
…Look at all these little things…
so busy all of a sudden.
Notice how each one is useful.
What a lovely ballet, so full of form
and color. So full of..life!

ZORG
Yes but… by that simple gesture of destruction.
I gave work to at least fifty people today. The
engineers, the technicians, the mechanics. Fifty people who will be able to feed their children so will have children of their own, adding to the great
cycle of life!

Buzz says:

If the music is any indicator, the future is booooooring!