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'A Lot of Hoped-for Automation Was Counterproductive', Remembers Elon Musk (bloomberg.com)
Thursday Elon Musk gave a surprisingly candid interview about Tesla's massive push to increase production of Model 3 sedans to 5,000 a week. An anonymous reader quotes Musk's remarks to Bloomberg:
I spent almost the entire time in the factory the final week, and yeah, it was essentially three months with a tiny break of like one day that I wasn't there. I was wearing the same clothes for five days. Yeah, it was really intense. And everybody else was really intense, too... I think we had to prove that we could make 5,000 cars in a week -- 5,000 Model 3s and at the same time make 2,000 S and X's, so essentially show that we could make 7,000 cars. We had to prove ourselves. The number of people who thought we would actually make it is very tiny, like vanishingly small. There was suddenly the credibility of the company, my credibility, you know, the credibility of the whole team. It was like, "Can you actually do this or not?"
There were a lot of issues that we had to address in order to do it. You know, we had to create the new general assembly line in basically less than a month -- to create it and get to an excess of a 1,000-cars-a-week rate in like four weeks... A lot of the hoped-for automation was counterproductive. It's not like we knew it would be bad, because why would we buy a ticket to hell...? A whole bunch of the robots are turned off, and it was reverted to a manual station because the robots kept faulting out. When the robot faults out -- like the vision system can't figure out how to put the object in -- then you've got to reset the system. You've got to manually seat the components. It stops the whole production line while you sort out why the robot faults out.
When the interviewer asks why that happens, Musk replies, "Because we were huge idiots and didn't know what we were doing. That's why."
There were a lot of issues that we had to address in order to do it. You know, we had to create the new general assembly line in basically less than a month -- to create it and get to an excess of a 1,000-cars-a-week rate in like four weeks... A lot of the hoped-for automation was counterproductive. It's not like we knew it would be bad, because why would we buy a ticket to hell...? A whole bunch of the robots are turned off, and it was reverted to a manual station because the robots kept faulting out. When the robot faults out -- like the vision system can't figure out how to put the object in -- then you've got to reset the system. You've got to manually seat the components. It stops the whole production line while you sort out why the robot faults out.
When the interviewer asks why that happens, Musk replies, "Because we were huge idiots and didn't know what we were doing. That's why."
I don't like censorship, but seriously isn't it about time Slashdot took some measures to actively block this spamming cunt!
Nothing particularly wrong with automation. I deal with it all the time, but my production is predictable, has accumulation to deal for errors and gives me a lot of balance. I find automation that starts to deal with vision systems where things completely fall apart. I've yet to find a "good" vision system, they're all pretty primitive, even for quality control, but if you allow for errors, you can develop things to mitigate the inherit problems with it.
I don't know what Tesla's automation has or what particular situation they have, but I'm sure they have good people trying to think of new ways to automate things. But I do run into a lot of designers trying to eliminate any type of accumulation system (Because it takes up a lot of space) and then utterly fail because of low tolerances in the system. Human error translates into computer systems multiplied by a huge factor.
You are mixing up long-term success (visionary) with short-term success (being a huge idiot sometimes). But you probably did that on purpose and are just trolling. Well, I like to feed sometimes ;) I have karma to burn.
If you can't be a huge fucking idiot sometimes you will not accomplish anything in life. It's when we naively make our greatest mistakes, we grow the most as a human being. The point is, learning and not making the same mistake again.
Do you know anyone that can operate an automatic assembly-line from birth, like it's in their DNA, other than its own digestive tract? No? Indeed, didn't think so. Eating and shitting all over the place comes naturally, as we see often enough here in the comments. The rest we have to learn. Sometimes we can learn from others, but if we want to do something innovative, we have to learn the hard way. That means being huge idiots until you know how to do it right.
If you think you can do better than Musk, prove it to the world, or forever hold your peace.
I prefer filler words such as "like" as well as the occasional "erm" from people who actually think about what they have to say, over people who talk and talk and talk with practiced ease but without actually saying anything. Too many interviews are just lips making noise with years of media training behind it, and an interviewer unable to break through that barrier. That's why these interviews with Musk are unusual and refreshing: he actually has something to say, speaks his mind, and isn't as prone to evade questions.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Well I would choose the 'let's try something ambitious and if it doesn't work just admit and stop doing it' over the trillion dollar corporate method of 'very small, committee stamped and approved, steps towards innovation' any day.
But admittedly, I am a fanboy...
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Ironically, that character flaw is also what has allowed him to succeed in breaking into markets the world thought he could never enter (upsetting established auto manufacturers with a tech electric startup, reusable rockets stealing market share from the Lockheeds of the world).
So maybe we ought to write it as “flaw” with the quotes instead.
Would that be the same 120 year old trillion dollar auto industry which said it was impossible to design and develop an electric car that people would actually buy?
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
From TFS;
That seems to me a lack of fault tolerance in the overall design approach. A major oversight if so. An entire line should not shut down due to one fault.
Well, yes and no. Assembly lines are tuned so that you produce the correct quantity of each item in the same amount of time it takes to complete the "full product". It's called Takt time. There are just over 10,000 minutes in a week, so the production goal of 5,000 cars per week requires a new Model 3 to roll off the line every 2 minutes.
Let's say they're building the battery packs as part of the assembly line, and it takes 60 minutes to build each pack. Just for grins, let's assume that it takes 10 minutes to install that battery pack. This implies that you need 6x as many battery assembly stations (or sub-assembly lines) to make batteries as you need battery installation stations.
If you have a robot installing batteries, and that robot fails, then you want to stop making batteries before you fill up all the available space with battery packs you can't use (because you can't install them). Similarly, you no longer have chassis with batteries to move further down the line, so anything after the battery installation has to stop, at least for that line.
There is slack in the process - it might be 59:30 to build the packs or 9:18 to install them, and there would likely be some parts storage as well, so the line could whether an employee going to the bathroom or something. It couldn't whether a continuous failure or a permanent change in process time (ie, it may take a human 13 minutes to install the pack and inspect their work).
Most assembly lines work this way. The more slack you have, the less efficient your line is (because you have all this extra time ...). The less slack you have, the less you can tolerate a fault.
I wonder how much $$$ was lost on that automation equipment now collecting dust.
I'd bet most of the lost money is whatever was spent on programming the units, and the lost opportunity cost for both the hardware and its configuration. The robots themselves are likely still usable, but they'll need to refine how they're used in order to recoup that investment.
- The Sigless Wonder
You are mixing up long-term success (visionary) with short-term success (being a huge idiot sometimes). But you probably did that on purpose and are just trolling. Well, I like to feed sometimes ;) I have karma to burn.
If you can't be a huge fucking idiot sometimes you will not accomplish anything in life. It's when we naively make our greatest mistakes, we grow the most as a human being. The point is, learning and not making the same mistake again.
Do you know anyone that can operate an automatic assembly-line from birth, like it's in their DNA, other than its own digestive tract? No? Indeed, didn't think so. Eating and shitting all over the place comes naturally, as we see often enough here in the comments. The rest we have to learn. Sometimes we can learn from others, but if we want to do something innovative, we have to learn the hard way. That means being huge idiots until you know how to do it right.
If you think you can do better than Musk, prove it to the world, or forever hold your peace.
Well said.
It's so easy to never fail. Just never try anything and spend all your time criticizing others who do.