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Friday, September 1, 2017

Automation facts of the day!

After the brick making machine, here comes two more job-killers.

This brick-laying robot, SAM, can potentially replace six workers!
And this sewing robot, LOWRY, can make as many shirts per hour as seventeen humans!
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.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

There's a whole range of productivity-enhancing, but labour-intensive technologies (and techniques) that can be introduced in India to - for instance - improve the throughput (output/work) in , say, various economic tasks in rural India; or improve the quality and quantity of construction work all over India which involves unskilled labour for the most part.

These are, of course, technologies based on simple machine - e.g. the block-and-tackle, a two-pulley arrangement that yields a mechanical advantage of 6- or 8- for lifting loads; unfurling customisable rain-water gathering umbrella (can be turned into different directions) with a flexible "bag-tank" arrangement for storing the water for both domestic & agricultural uses ; a mechanical "digger" that yields a similar mechanical advantage for digging of various kinds &c &c.

I can't for the life of me see why such techniques are not widely adapted, and low-skill labour teams and individuals trained to use these in different tasks. They can serve as a crucial intermediate stage while the economy as a whole graduates to a higher technology phase.