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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[–] RaisedFistJoker@hexbear.net 42 points 23 hours ago (20 children)

It's not improbable within a few years we will have 100% robot-staffed factories that need no humans at all.

You'll never get to 100%, you still need at minimum maintenance guys for the robotics

[–] Lugh 4 points 23 hours ago (18 children)

They day will come when robots can do all the maintenance they need on each other.

[–] TreadOnMe@hexbear.net 29 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (17 children)

Doubtful. The amount of precise manipulation needed to do something as simple as repair the feeder mechanism on a welder, is still decades away, let alone cut and install wiring, or repair a work-cell cage. While some of that is kinda possible, to be able to do it at scale and more cost effective than human labor is well into the realm of fiction, and does not reflect a realistic assessment of the state of future or current capabilities.

[–] Lugh 2 points 21 hours ago (3 children)

The amount of precise manipulation needed to do something as simple as repair the feeder mechanism on a welder,

If robots can build cars, I'd guess they can manage that.

[–] TreadOnMe@hexbear.net 31 points 21 hours ago

Building a car on a set-piece line, and recognizing a quality defect, assessing the cause of the defect, and repairing the mechanism that caused the defect are completely different engineering challenges. One is very suited towards robotic adoption, the other is not and will require robotic technologies that do not exist to be applied it ways not yet understood in a cost effective manner that has not been explained.

[–] SkingradGuard@hexbear.net 2 points 13 hours ago

If robots can build cars, I'd guess they can manage that.

Robots aren't magic, they're programmed to do one thing only. Faults in machines can occur in all sorts of ways a preprogrammed robot arm can't fix. You need a human to figure it out

[–] Lemister@hexbear.net 4 points 18 hours ago

Robots are suited to monotonous labour, not judging situations, or more than surface level analysis of errors.

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