New T-Shirt Sewing Robot Can Make As Many Shirts Per Hour As 17 Factory Workers (qz.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Quartz: In 2015, after years of research, SoftWear Automation introduced LOWRY, a sewing robot, or sewbot, that uses machine vision to spot and adjust to distortions in the fabric. Though initially only able to make simple products, such as bath mats, the technology is now advanced enough to make whole t-shirts and much of a pair of jeans. According to the company, it also does it far faster than a human sewing line. SoftWear Automation's big selling point is that one of its robotic sewing lines can replace a conventional line of 10 workers and produce about 1,142 t-shirts in an eight-hour period, compared to just 669 for the human sewing line. Another way to look at it is that the robot, working under the guidance of a single human handler, can make as many shirts per hour as about 17 humans. The company has emerged as a leader among those trying to automate sewing, drawing the interest of businesses that make home goods and of course clothing manufacturers, including Tianyuan Garments Company, a Chinese firm that produces for brands such as Adidas and Armani. Tianyuan Garments has invested $20 million in a 100,000-square foot factory in Little Rock, Arkansas, planned to open in 2018. The factory will be staffed with 21 robotic production lines supplied by SoftWear Automation, and will be capable of making 1.2 million t-shirts a year.

Comments

US production

[Okian Warrior]

US production per worker is currently about $58,000, and seems to be going up by $10,000 per decade.

That's per capita, meaning "per person". If the per-capita output were distributed equally to every man, woman, and child everyone would have about $58.000 to spend. Each year. Including kids and babies. And they could do it again next year.

This will only go up as AI and automation take over. A huge number of driving jobs will be taken over by self-driving vehicles in the next decade (already happening with long-haul trucks), and AI and robotics will take over ever more of the production, working 24/7 and making more goods, more cheaply, and faster than humans.

We need to transition away from the current economic system real soon, or suffer massive riots and the downfall of our culture as unemployed people riot and take it down for us.

We need a way to spread the wealth out a little more evenly. UBI is one way, and we're getting really close to the point where UBI will be cheaper than the cost of government assistance plus the lost cost of higher crime and prison for the poor.

Perhaps taxing the robots and using the money to fund the rest of UBI would work.

We could also lower the SS retirement age, or go to a 4-day work week. Lots of options, many would work or could be made to work.

But we have to start transitioning just about now, or risk the downfall of our culture.

Re:US production

[Whibla]

If I'm a lineman busting my ass day in and day out risking my life and limb for your electricity to stay on, and I have the opportunity to work for $60k, but you're making 58k sitting on your ass collecting UBI, guess what I won't be doing for much longer

If someone is making 58k on UBI and you're making 60k as a lineman then, guess what, their take home is 58k and yours is 118k. Why ignore the fact that the U in UBI stands for universal?

If I make $50k and a loaf of bread costs $2 before the automation / AI schism, but I make $100k and a loaf of bread costs $4 after, nothing's changed, except the number on my income tax return looks more impressive.

One possible answer to this 'problem' is that there's only so much bread you can eat. If you spent, and still spend, 40% of your salary on bread (as a synonym for food) previously you had $30k left over whereas now you have 60k left to spend.

Oh wait, your argument is that everything will inflate. An 'interesting' hypothesis, albeit not one grounded in reality. Quite apart from the fact that introduction of UBI wouldn't double overall income / wages you're also completely ignoring the changes that are the reason for its suggested introduction in the first place. Now, while it is true that real wages in many western economies aren't keeping up with inflation, and haven't been for a while, a large part of the reason for this is what I think of as international rebalancing. If you take a look outside your relatively pampered life and get a bit of global socio-historical perspective you might start to see why it's happening, why it's necessary, and why it's 'right'.

If it costs $5 / $6 / $7 then I've lost out on buying power, and if that trend continues, it won't be long before I'm waiting in the bread line, burning $100 bills to stay warm; right along side the other 'millionaires'.

Sigh. And yet more FUD.

T-Shirt robots and other productive things won't be HERE, contributing to the GDP, paying into our tax base. They'll be in China and other countries where existing production lines are, because the supply chains are there to support it, because we friggin gutted ours. The engineering and design jobs may be here, for a little while. Until those are also taken to China, to be closer to the actual production.

From TFS: "Tianyuan Garments has invested $20 million in a 100,000-square foot factory in Little Rock, Arkansas, planned to open in 2018". Sure, in comparison to recent figures relating to investment in factory production in the US, $20 million is small beans but we are talking $5 T-Shirts here, not $500 phones.

The real value

[king neckbeard]

The real value of this tech is that it will allow for bespoke clothing to become a lot more accessible. Whether or not this iteration is capable of it, that future is inevitable.

Sutures

[cerberusss]

I wonder how big the step would be to get that robot to make a suture, sewing skin instead of a t-shirt.

Two years ago, I had a bite at a restaurant but the meal didn't sit so well. I had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, and for some reason lost consciousness. I got to my senses and discovered I was bleeding profusely from an actually very small cut in my forehead. I went to the doc next morning and he stitched the cut.

Two weeks later, he removed the stitches and told me he was quite happy with the result. He mentioned that the cut was actually not a straight cut, but a "hook" which apparently is difficult to cleanly close without later showing an obvious scar.

From the summary: "uses machine vision to spot and adjust to distortions in the fabric". It would be very interesting to know whether it could lay a stitch to prevent scar tissue.

Re:Good idea, but...

[JonnyCalcutta]

Perhaps the stock market it at record highs _because_ interest is approaching negative rates? If you can't put your savings in the bank that money has to be invested somewhere. More investors chasing the same shares = higher share prices.