this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2025
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cross-posted from: https://futurology.today/post/4251786

Bringing manufacturing jobs home has been in the news lately, but it's not the 1950s or even the 1980s anymore. Today's factories need far less humans. Global car sales were 78,000,000 in 2024 and the global automotive workforce was 2,500,000. However, if the global workforce was as efficient as this Honda factory, it could build those cars with only 20% of that workforce.

If something can be done for 20% of the cost, that is probably the direction of travel. Bear in mind too, factories will get even more automated and efficient than today's 2025 Honda factory.

It's not improbable within a few years we will have 100% robot-staffed factories that need no humans at all. Who'll have the money to buy all the cars they make is another question entirely.

Details of the new Honda factory.

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[–] Incremental_anarchist@hexbear.net 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I don't think it's necessarily decades away, and in any case decades isn't even that long - within most of our timespans even.

[–] TreadOnMe@hexbear.net 17 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Yeah, and people have been saying we would have household robots since the 00's as well, doesn't make it true. And I say decades because I believe that it could take more than a 100 years at the current scale of adaptation and adoption, assuming consistent innovation, which I do not.

Literally working in the field of manufacturing robotics, you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about about.

Six-axis manipulators have not significantly changed since the 00's, and robots are no closer to being able to recognize fault and repair themselves than they were in the 60's. LIM's have made quality control on fast large scale presses easier, but there are still massive problems with integration into larger robotic systems.

If I were to guess, I would say that most of Honda's efficiency gains have come from being able to run brand new robotics, and running LIM's on their part presses which are likely far more precise in their abilities, but something that will likely degrade over the next 5 years of running. This will create significant improvements from the competition, along with being able to build a factory from the ground up around these technologies, as well as great application of 5s and lean manufacturing principles, which is something most car companies outside of Tesla haven't been able to do recently, but rather adapt existing infrastructure to current technologies. As well, Honda, unlike Tesla, is also likely working with statistically proven technologies and not wasting time on massive engineering technology boondoggles, as Tesla is prone towards doing.

It's cool to see, but I highly encourage people to actually get into manufacturing technologies and robotics to be able to see past the sci-fi goggles and marketing hype to where the state of the tech actually is.

[–] pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I dunno, all of us non-experts are pretty sure robots will do that soon...

Who are at to believe, someone like you who clearly knows the field, or a known con-man who lied to us about every previous thing they sold us?

(This is sarcasm. I learned something from your posts. Thank you for weighing in on this.)

[–] TreadOnMe@hexbear.net 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Thanks. There are still a lot of advancements being made globally, and it is always possible something will come out of the blue and surprise me, but, for now and for my lifetime, humans still are bound to the manufacturing line if we wish to pursue an industrial economy (which is a completely different argument to be had).

[–] Lemister@hexbear.net 5 points 1 day ago

That is why my sci-fi prediction of humans being augmented to be more "productive" and turned into tools is totally more real than all the other amateurs!