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The Auto Plants of the Future May Have a Surprisingly Human Touch (reuters.com)
Carmakers have big plans for their next generation of factories: smarter designs, artificial intelligence and collaborative robots building a wide range of vehicles on the same line. From a report: The plants will also feature a component they say is the secret ingredient to flexible manufacturing: humans. SAIC-GM's factory in Shanghai, which opened in 2016, is one of the world's most advanced auto plants, assembling Buick minivans and Cadillac sedans and SUVs, including the CT-6 plug-in hybrid for U.S. consumers. GM's Shanghai plant is expected to eventually produce new electric vehicles, primarily for the Chinese market, executives have said. The plant, which GM operates with Chinese partner SAIC Motor Corp Ltd, feels almost like a scene from a Star Wars film, with battalions of machines quietly working in self-directed harmony. Collaborative robots, or "cobots," painted matte green and unrestrained by the steel cages that surround their larger industrial cousins, are being programmed to work alongside humans on the line. One unusual operation advanced models now handle is installing gears in transmissions.
What's funny is GM does some crazy stuff when working with "partners"...Early in my career I worked remanufacturing ECM (Electronic Control Modules) for them. There was an ECM that they used in a couple of Oldsmobile vehicles that were also used in some Isuzu models. That ECM had several dummy circuits that didn't do a damn thing. This was back when ECM were rudimentary and only controlled the fuel injectors and a few sensors. I could tell you what the entire thing did just by looking at the circuit board. The crazy part was if one of the dummy circuits went "bad" it would still throw a code and trigger the check engine light. I can't tell you how many thousands of these devices we repaired the dummy circuit on. Just so they could "fool" the guys over at Isuzu.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Since no one probably RTFA and it wasn't mentioned, what this means is robots that are sensitive to impacts outside their programmed maneuvers and can avoid stupid humans getting in the way.
So if a robot encounters resistance where it's not expected, it stops. It's the same kind of response that you see with the table saws these days that detect your finger touching the blade and stops it before you get cut.
I believe they also incorporate heat sensors and other sensors to detect people and can predict when the robot actions might impact them.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Because cars last longer these days, the poor and lower middle class mostly buy used cars. The wealthy want new, of course. This means manufacturers who better cater to the finicky tastes of the wealthy get the sale.
Cranking out the same model in large quantities as cheap as possible is no longer a competitive strategy because the poor buy used and the rich don't want generic cars. But it's hard to get flexibility with automated manufacturing, and thus the "co-bots" which are semi-managed by line workers is the trend.
Table-ized A.I.