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

Re:Good idea, but...

[cayenne8]

Currently the number of jobs is shrinking, while the workforce is not [google.com](*). it's already causing a lot of stress in our society, and probably one reason for the recent election results.

The election results were NOT primarily based on the stress of disappearing jobs in society.

I know it might be difficult for those folks on the extreme ends of the US (east/west coast) and extreme liberal political slant....but there are a LOT of people in the US that have not only been unhappy but 101% opposed to the direction the country has been taking in the past years, which is trying to fundamentally change how the US has been to date.

They don't like the over reach of Federal authority and intrusion into state and private lives. They don't like the trend away from the individual to the hive mind, they don't like the way the govt. and media have been moving to identity politics which has been a large basis of the current division problems in America.

For some reason it seems the left has a hard time comprehending that not everyone is lock step with their thinking.

You combine that with the horrible lack of talent for the presidential race and lack of message, and you see what we ended up with.

People were willing to vote anything in that upset the political engines of the previous decade or two.

There are a lot of folks still in the US that want to keep the general ideals that made the country grow and thrive such as individualism, and merit based reward rather than what color you are or what you like to do with your pee-pee.