When the process/factory itself becomes the product: robotics technology and the future of manufacturing

 

Blue-collar workers (on manufacturing assembly lines, transport drivers, maintenance, etc.) have seen some impact from robotics so far.  That's generally been in the form of big machines permanently planted in given locations on an assembly line, performing one or more functions under supervision, then sending the article onward to the next assembly station.  In terms of transport, artificial intelligence-boosted computerized copilots have already flown, some of them capable of taking an aircraft from takeoff to landing without human intervention.  Driverless vehicles are already riding America's roads, and becoming more common.  However, the basic structure of the workplace - a "traditional" factory, or transport, or whatever - has not (yet) been fundamentally challenged.

That's about to change.  It looks as if Elon Musk and Tesla are in the vanguard, developing humanoid robots that can run their own assembly line, moving and functioning in a human fashion rather than being restricted to one place and one job.  Because the robots are now (or soon will be) autonomous, the entire nature of the factory as we know it may change drastically.

Tesla is Revolutionizing Manufacturing—And Few Are Talking About It 

"The most under-discussed thing in the analyst world about Tesla is not the new vehicles coming, nor the growing discussions about autonomy, but rather Tesla's next product: their new way of manufacturing. 

It's a big deal, a huge step in how products are made today, and I don't think many investment firms have the right research people actually looking into what this impact is and what it's going to enable. 

It's going to enable the variable cost to build products to shrink further and further, approaching zero. This is the step function needed for cost reduction to achieve further scale, and I don’t think enough people are talking about it. 

It’s going to be how the Cybertruck is made, how Optimus will be made. Tesla versions its factories like they version their product. 

They spend time perfecting it and have design reviews of their factory designs just as they do with their products. They have specs and performance attributes they are trying to meet. This is very different from what happens at other companies at the executive level."

That's an excerpt on X.com from this hour-long discussion of what Tesla is doing, and how it may impact other manufacturers and interests.

It sounds very similar to what SpaceX has done with its rocket engine design and manufacture.  It has three generations (so far) of its Raptor rocket engine (click the image below for a larger view):

Each generation has been "smarter", lighter, more powerful and simpler than the preceding one.  Furthermore, production has speeded up immensely.  According to Elon Musk, SpaceX is producing one of the third-generation Raptor engines every day at its factory in California - and that'll have to increase significantly if SpaceX hopes to launch two of its mammoth Starship rockets every month this year.  Only ultra-modern manufacturing techniques, using robotics and computer-aided manufacture whenever possible, can hope to achieve that rate of production.  Traditional manufacturing, with its high number of human employees, literally could not work fast or accurately enough to produce them.  Sounds like a poster child for the new manufacturing techniques discussed above . . . and for other industries too.

This is such a profound statement because a lot of the stories that I hear are related to, like, say Tesla capitalizing on making manufacturing the product—really just honing in so much on the factory that it becomes the product, the you know, and where we throw around 2 million cars per year, five million cars per year per factory, tens of millions of bots per year sooner than people think. The usual narrative is crazy, pie-in-the-sky; they can’t do that, look at Ford, look at BYD, they can only do so much.

But what we’re missing here is that we’ve had decades of just sitting on our asses, leveraging cheaper labor versus going out of our way to really push the boundaries of engineering and manufacturing. And now that we have a company that’s willing to do that because the leader is viewing that as a first principles approach to manufacturing, right? Instead of like, okay, cheap labor is good, but why aren’t we pushing manufacturing and engineering as much as we can to make this as efficient and as productive as possible?

Of course they’re extremely talented, they’re doing something very unique, but it’s also on the backs of 30-40 years of, I’m going to call it laziness. Like, you’re just taking the easy way out, and I get it, more profits, you’re taking care of shareholders—I get it—but you’re not really pushing the boundaries of manufacturing. I think what this leads to is, if companies and leaders truly take this to heart, we’re going to see an explosion in manufacturing across the board. It’s not just going to be a Tesla thing; I think we’re going to see it all over the place.

There's more at the link.

Another aspect is the introduction of robotics into areas like farming, where human labor has until now been indispensable.  We've discussed in these pages robots that dispense insecticide and fertilizer, or harvest certain crops;  but now robots are set to play a much larger role, simply because some jobs require labor that is no longer available (or willing to work for affordable wages), and/or are too dangerous to risk human lives.  One commenter on the video embedded above said:

As a "small" scale rural farmer (no tractors) our biggest expense is labour, about $28,000 per employee (40 hrs/ week @ $20/hr for 8 months/year). And that is IF we can find any willing workers. IF we can they often make many costly mistakes, take time off for vacations, and productions plummets if it is too hot, too cold, too rainy, or when they are too tired. 

Humanoid robots are terrifying to me, but at the same time I can't help but be drawn to the possibility that they could be the solution we have been looking for...

Another example of robotics in agriculture is working in grain silos.

The remote-controlled robot was created by a Nebraska family whose farmer friend pleaded with them to build him a robot so he never had to risk going into a dangerous grain bin again.

Noting on their website that there are around 25 grain-bin engulfment deaths a year, Grain Weevil has adopted the motto “No boots in the grain.”

That’s a motto that sits well with Rabou, who grows wheat and other grains near Cheyenne.

“It doesn’t matter what kind of grain you’re raising, it’s all dangerous when it’s in a bin,” Rabou told Cowboy State Daily. “All you have to do is just collapse one empty pocket, and it can just, as soon as it has pressure on it, collapse and pull everything into it.”

Everything, in the case of many family farms, is likely to be either a good friend or family member. That makes grain-bin entrapment a very personal tragedy, both for the farm family and the surrounding farming community. 

Rabou said given the choice of sending a robot into a grain bin or a person, it’s going to be the robot every time.

Again, more at the link.

Add to that experimentation in other countries for new ways to use robots, particularly humanoid ones (for example, Japan has a great need for elder care, and nowhere near enough people to fill all those jobs, so it's experimenting with robotic delivery of elder care instead), and it looks as if traditional blue-collar work across many industries and economies is about to be severely shaken up.  That's an important consideration for young people looking at their future careers.  Can their chosen field be automated, and is it cost-effective to do so?  If so, they might want to look somewhere else.

On the other hand, could the advent of such advanced automation save older industries that have become too expensive with human labor, and can't recruit enough skilled workers to produce their output?  We spoke a few days ago about the USA's shipbuilding industry crisis, and how we might have to look to other countries to manufacture our ships.  Could the extensive automation of US shipyards change that picture?

Finally, we have to ask what we'll do with thousands of blue-collar workers, particularly those who are untrained or without complex, in-demand skills, who will be left without work as a result of this new wave of automation.  How are they to support themselves?  Will some sort of universal basic income become a necessary, even an essential element of our society?  Will our cities become merely residences for unwanted former workers, while factories migrate from them to new industrial zones organized around and built upon automated systems, with minimal human involvement?  Who knows?

Peter