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Mercedes-Benz Swaps Robots For People On Assembly Lines (theguardian.com)
The usual narrative in the last few years is that robots relentlessly displace humans in today's highly mechanized workplaces (like factories and mines), but sometimes robots' speed and dexterity can't overcome their basic problem -- namely, they're robots. Reader jones_supa writes with this story from The Guardian about why robots aren't always the right tool, excerpting: Bucking modern manufacturing trends, carmaker Mercedes-Benz has been forced to trade in some of its assembly line robots for more flexible humans. The robots cannot handle the pace of change and the complexity of the key customization options available for the company's S-Class saloon at the 101-year-old Sindelfingen plant, which produces 400,000 vehicles a year from 1,500 tons of steel a day. The dizzying number of options for the cars – from heated or cooled cup holders, various wheels, carbon-fibre trims and decals, and even four types of caps for tire valves – demand adaptability, a quality that is still more easily fulfilled by humans than robots.
People are flawed creatures capable of manufacturing more profitable iterations of themselves for the workplace.
What jobs are safest?
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Mercedes is shifting to what it calls “robot farming” - equipping workers with an array of smaller, lighter machines. ...
The change will mean smaller, more flexible systems that work side-by-side with humans will replace some of the large traditional robotic machines, including in the production of the new Mercedes E-Class. A human or a lightweight machine will replace two fixed robots for the alignment of the car’s new heads-up display, which projects speed and directions on to the windshield.
the basic problem is that Mercedes invested in large fixed machines that are limited in their abilities. they are temporarily relieving some of the large robots of certain duties to let more agile robots do the job. until the more agile robots are 100% ready, human will be assisting the robots.
it's 2016 and it's about time companies start investing in manufacturing machines that have hands with dexterity equal to humans. also, robotics companies need to develop better programming interfaces so that the robots can be taught what to do rather than directly programmed.
robots are still center stage here and humans are going to be on the sidelines again shortly.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
The janitors generally work harder and longer hours than CEOs.
No as a matter of fact janitors do NOT work harder and longer than the CEOs. The fact that you say that shows that you have no idea what a CEO of a large company actually does or the sort of hours they put in. I'll presume you know what a janitor does but I've yet to meet one who works harder than a CEO. They also provide quite a lot less value to a company and are far more easily replaced.
Are a lot of CEOs overpaid? Certainly. Are a lot of rank and file workers underpaid? Of course. But let's not get absurd about the relative value or typical work ethic of janitors.
As the janitors don't get 6-12 weeks of paid vacation a year.
Neither do most CEOs and even if they did, most couldn't really take it. Being CEO of a large corporation is a pretty all consuming job. You don't get to that job by taking a lot of time off and you certainly don't stay there by taking time off.
In a world without labor cost, where robots can produce windmills, solar panels, and geothermal plants, even energy will have near zero cost.
Not according to anyone who has even a basic understanding of accounting. Even if the production of those things could be completely automated (it cannot without invoking science fiction) there still are costs of materials, cost of financing, limited amounts of land, environmental costs, cost of tooling, cost of design, and plenty of other non-trivial costs that you aren't considering. The fact that you take direct labor to approximately zero doesn't make it free. Not even close.
By the way we've heard the "energy too cheap to meter" argument before. It was bogus then and it is bogus now.
You're laughing, but it's serious.
People are simply cheaper. No initial cost, people come pre-made and ready to use. No maintenance costs, people are self-fixing and self-repairing, and if repair times are too long you simply dump them and buy, I mean, hire a new one. Same for wear and tear, once the human is too damaged to continue, simply replace it.
Why use machines when humans can do the same job more flexibly and cheaper?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.