Machines vs Manual

Vicinalvictor · Oct 24, 2018

I think robots and machines are the way of the future in this country when it comes to agricultural production and manufacturing. Work ethic, immigration issues, etc., makes it difficult to run a business when someone else's problem becomes your problem. Did you know Ford motor company produces a new F 150 pickup truck off the line every 52 seconds?

Charlie M · Oct 24, 2018

I think you're right. The repetitive stuff will benefit from automation due the reasons you give. Before people say that's terrible one of the other effects is while it eliminates a low wage job it creates a high wage job to do the programming and repairs.

Janicholson · Oct 24, 2018

The real world consequences of robotic and process control is job displacement and job loss. From every station in industry there are fewer workers and more bots or bot like assistants. The high pay jobs have not kept up with the loss by a substantial % My guess is 3 gained and 4 lost. It will get worse. If we can make a line of tractors with 30 engineers and 30 administrators and 70 maintenance workers for the non self repairing systems, it will happen. The countries that employ thousands of people are just beginning to introduce automation because it is cheaper than the 20 workers it displaced. (read China/India/Malaysia) I teach Production Technology (45th year) and I have seen it and taught it and had graduates that have retired!!! Jim

Mike M · Oct 24, 2018

So they are then making what like $ 40,000 a minute !

Also every 52 seconds somewhere in the world a spark plug blows out of one !

Kansas4010 · Oct 24, 2018

That's about one Ford pickup every minute. There's 1,440 minutes in a day. At that rate there should certainly be enough of a surplus for everyone that even I should be able to afford one. I'm not to picky, they can give me one they made way back last week or so.

ss55 · Oct 24, 2018

It's really nothing new. Agriculture has become more and more automated for the last 100 to 150 years. The days of plowing with a team of oxen, cutting grain with a scythe, or picking ear corn by hand disappeared several generations ago.

Automobile production lines have been producing a car a minute since the days of the Model T.

wilson ind · Oct 24, 2018

Rember Forest Gump out ran a Ford!!!!!!

old-9 · Oct 24, 2018

In WWII the Willow Run Bomber plant (FORD) produced one B-24 Bomber every hour, 24 A DAY! A little bigger than a pick up. One of these B-24's brought my father home after 22 missions over Europe. joe

isie · Oct 25, 2018

At the GM Arlington assembly plant a large SUV rolls of the line every 55 seconds. Three shifts 6 days a week, we build 420 a shift and they sell like crazy. Especially export to China, Russia and Saudi Arabia.

showcrop · Oct 25, 2018

Whenever the minimum wage goes up an economic incentive is given to businesses to develop, market, sell, purchase and put into use labor saving devices.

1948CaseVAI · Oct 25, 2018

The pace of progress accelerates as a function of time and our ability to extend prior advances. Look at the labor need to thresh wheat with a steam engine vs. a combine. Progress has been with us since cave man days, but the rate of perceived change accelerates. This is not new, and it is not a bad thing. People will adapt, as they always have.

dhermesc · Oct 25, 2018

Every 52 seconds? 100 years ago they were building model Ts even faster. In 1925 they produced about 8,500 units a DAY. In 1916 half the cars on the planet were Ford Model Ts.

Eldon (WA) · Oct 25, 2018

In the early 90's I did a part design on a $2m dial machine for Ford that took a raw casting and spit out a finished piston for their AC pump every 6 seconds. They had 4 machines and were planning on ordering 4 more. That is a lot of pistons in a day! Who knows how many they have like that today.

BarnyardEngineering · Oct 25, 2018

(quoted from post at 10:46:45 10/24/18) I think you're right. The repetitive stuff will benefit from automation due the reasons you give. Before people say that's terrible one of the other effects is while it eliminates a low wage job it creates a high wage job to do the programming and repairs.

The fallacy in your statement is that it's not a 1-for-1 exchange. For every one high wage job to do the programming and repairs created, tens, hundreds, or even thousands of low-wage jobs are lost, depending on the type of automation.

There has to be a financial incentive to automation, and one of the big ones is reduced labor cost. If you were replacing a low wage worker doing manual tasks with a high wage worker programming and repairing the machine on a 1-for-1 basis, your labor costs go UP, not down.

Machines vs Manual

Vicinalvictor

Well-known Member

Charlie M

Well-known Member

Janicholson

Well-known Member

Mike M

Well-known Member

Kansas4010

Well-known Member

ss55

Well-known Member

wilson ind

Well-known Member

old-9

Well-known Member

isie

Member

showcrop

Well-known Member

1948CaseVAI

Well-known Member

dhermesc

Well-known Member

Eldon (WA)

Well-known Member

BarnyardEngineering

Well-known Member

Similar threads