Objective: Explain the application of computing and communication to the advance of automation in the production of goods. Explain why this automation process requires constant reorganization of the manufacturing process . Also, explain the competition between US and Japan. The index for this section is:
The advances in microelectronics and communications will greatly accelerate the automation of the production of goods and services. In one sense automation using microelectronics and communications advances is simply the continuation of a trend to increase the amount of capital per worker to obtain higher labor productivity. In another sense the new type of automation is fundamentally different. Human skills are being incorporated into software. To consider the advances in automation we will first survey the current state of automation in manufacturing. Then we will consider how international competition is creating incentives to automate. Advances in automation are innovations. The final aspect to consider is the problems in this type of innovation.
Let us start by considering the status of automation in manufacturing. Manufactured items are continuous, such as liquids; or discrete, such as automobiles. The current status of production in manufacturing is:
a. Continuous process fluids: Chemicals, beer, petrochemicals. These types of production, whether batch or continuous, are currently highly automated. So called production workers sit around and watch the dials.
b. Discrete: In discrete production the size of the production run determines the efficiency of the process.
(1) Mass: In high volume production it pays to have a specific machine for each purpose. The precise number which constitutes high volume depends on the type of product. Automobiles are a good example because production runs are generally in excess of 200,000 units.
(2) Batch processing: In batch production the production lots run from 10 to 1000. Examples of batch production are airplanes, large earth moving equipment, and ships. Batch processes comprise 40%of the mfg work force. In batch production general purpose machines are used in contrast to the specific purpose machines of mass production. The cost of batch production is 10- 30 times the cost of equivalent mass production.
(3) Individual production: This type of production exists today only for artisan items. The cost is 100 times as much as mass production. For example, compare the cost of auto repairs with the cost of the original production. How much damage does it take to total a car?
To discuss automation of discrete manufacturing we need to breakdown production into its components:
a. Design: Buzz words - CAD, computer assisted design; CAE, computer assisted engineering
b. Parts manufacture: The buzz word here is flexible manufacturing systems, FMS, which are also called manufacturing cells. It is very important for the student to realize that a FMS is really a computer controlled machine shop and is not a complete automated manufacturing plant.
c. Parts coordination: To assemble a durable good you must get the right part to the right place at the right time. When you consider that auto production, etc, involves tens of thousands of parts this is no easy matter.
d. Quality control To reduce waste, inventory of parts and work-in-progress, it is necessary to greatly improve quality in all aspects of the manufacturing process. The result is a high quality product.
e. Assembly: Here we are talking about the assembly line. To automate assembly requires much more than replacing people with robots. Efficient use of robots usually requires a complete reorganization of production.
f. Integration: Buzz word - CIM, computer integrated manufacturing. Currently automation is proceeding piecemeal in each area. Advances in computation and communications provide the building blocks. Integration of the steps into fully automated production will take time. The various steps have incompatible standards so communication is difficult.
g. Reorganization Innovation in manufacturing is much more than simply substituting machines and software for humans in the production process. As automation advances, firms must also constantly innovate by reorganizing their human-machine production process to achieve an edge in international competition.
Now let us consider each step of discrete manufacturing automation in detail.
In the 60's, CAD was a computer controlled plotting pen. Moreover, CAD required a large mainframe and was so expensive that only the largest manufacturers could consider using CAD and CAE. The advances in CAD and the fall in cost has paralleled the advances in the computer industry. CAD systems are currently available for PCs at a cost of $500plus. This means CAD is now within the reach of all but the smallest manufacturing firm. Moreover, as CAD software advanced, specific programs were created applicable for each industry. (CAD software is industry specific. For example, you would not use a CAD program for mechanical design to design an electric circuit.)
Another important aspect in the advance in CAD is the continual improvement in the graphical representation of object. As computer graphics improved, designs starting with two dimensions `wire-frame' drawings advanced sequentially to three dimensional `wire-frame' drawings, two dimensional solid objects, three dimensional surfaces, to the current three dimension solid objects. In addition, vivid colors and dynamic motion were added. Today the graphic representations are of sufficient quality the CAD can be used for styling as well as design.
Computer assisted design facilitates design because an engineer can create a rough sketch and a computer program will transform the sketch into a complete engineering drawing. In architecture, the program can add standard items such as electric outlets. This transformation of sketch to finished drawing will greatly decrease the demand for draftsmen. Engineers will create their own drawings. Secondly, CAD facilitates geometric transformations. A three dimensional part can be rotated, cut by cross sections, and examined in detail by zooming in. In designing integrated circuits software programs, silicon compilers, have been created to design the circuits given the specifications.
The digital storage of CAD designs provides two advantages. First, all departments in the firm will have the most current design. Before computer stored designs, each department might have a different version creating opportunities for Murphy's law to occur. Second, in creating multiple models or making a more advanced design, the engineer can start with the existing designs and modify them. Because a substantial percent of the new parts can be obtained through modification of the old parts, great savings of time and engineering effort are obtained. Chrysler's consolidation of their product line reduced the number of parts from 75 to 40 thousand. The use of computers allows for the clustering of similar parts in design and production. Only 20%of new parts require new designs and another 40%can be created by modifications of old designs. This saving is achieved by better organization through computer use.
Computer assisted engineering enables engineers to analyze a design through computer programs without having to build a prototype. Given the geometry of a design, the degree of interference or clearance between parts can be observed. If moving parts are present in the design, they can be rotated as a dynamic check. The geometric properties such as volume, weight, center of gravity, moments of inertia, radii of gyration, polar moments, etc of 3-D modes can be readily calculated. An important example is the analysis of stress on a part. The program is called a finite element analysis program. Another example is simulated ( by a computer program) wind tunnel testing on a design to determine the wind resistance or drag. Computer programs called silicon compilers can lay out the circuitry of a chip. Electrical designs started as sketches can be analyzed. Building designs can be analyzed for wind and earthquake damage. The architectural software will also automatically insert the building code requirements.
CAD and CAE have improved the productivity of design by a factor of 2 in the case of mechanical design such as automobiles to as much as 30 in the case of designing integrated circuits using silicon compilers.
Some interesting sites to surf for CAD and CAE are:
Most mechanical products are assembled from parts. After designing the parts, they must be manufactured. Before FMS, parts for batch production were created in machine shops by skilled machinists, who would use general purpose machines such as laths, drills and so on in sequence to create the parts. To discuss the automation of such a machine shop (creation of an FMS, which is also known as a manufacturing cell), we must first consider the functions to be accomplished at each machine:
a. Move the proper workpiece to machine
b. Load workpiece onto the machine
c. Select proper tool
d. establish a set machine speeds
e. control machine motion
f. sequence different tools
g. unload part
In mass production, the large volume makes having a special purpose machine for each operation economical, but in batch production, it simply is not economical to have special purpose machines for each operation, because they would sit idle most of the time. The goal in improving the efficiency of batch parts manufacture has been to create computer controllers which will make general purpose machines flexible enough to create multiple parts automatically. Since 1960, considerable advances in FMS have been made from the numerically controlled machine to the current flexible manufacturing cell, several general purpose machines linked and controlled by a computer.
A schematic drawing of an FMS is shown below. Remember each of the machines shown is a general purpose machine which must be programmed through the steps a-g listed above.
The current leader in this area are the Japanese. Fanuc, Ltd. created a plant in the 80s that makes robots and CNC machine tools. The plant is essentially an automated machine shop that produces parts for these machines. Robots carry the parts from one group of machines to another. Vehicles automatically store finished parts and retrieve raw workpieces. There are 19 day shift workers and one night shift worker.
The use of FMS instead of a general purpose machine shop staffed by skilled machinists can reduce the cost of manufacturing parts by a factor of 5 to 10. With a general purpose machine shop, the machinists spend a large portion of their time setting up the machines for the next operation. With a FMS, this set up time is greatly reduced by the computer which sets up the machines automatically. Because the set up time is greatly reduced, machine time in creating parts increases from 3- 10%to 50%of the total time. Also, FMS requires from 10 to 30%of the skilled labor which a general machine shop requires. Besides reducing labor costs and increasing the output of the machines, a FMS has two other advantages over a general purpose machine shop. With a FMS, production can rapidly shift from one part to another. Thus, a FMS can match supply to demand with very little inventory. In addition, the use of FMS has led to much greater quality control.
The problems with FMS are the cost of setting up the stations and the fact that technical expertise is required to set them up and run them. If a component breaks, the FMS cell shuts down. Despite these limitations, FMS has moved from the experimental to the rapid growth stage. The demand by larger firms for higher quality control in order to install just in time parts management has created incentives for small firms to install FMS in order to achieve higher quality control. An example of a small firm which installed an FMS cell is Frost, Inc. with 1985 sales of $16M. For a $5.1M investment, sales per employee have climbed from $86,000 top $130,000. Quality control has improved from 1 reject in 4 to 1 reject in 20. Gross margins have increased to 35%in spite of price decreases of 21%since 1983. With its FMS, Frost could shift from the production of one item to another in minutes instead of 12 hours or more. Frost converted to automation at 1/3 the cost of the expert plans. To capitalize on its experience with FMS, Frost has set up a consulting company to advice other firms desiring to follow suit.
The efficient route to automation is not to take several general purpose machines and replace them with a manufacturing cell. This leads to the term `islands of automation'. Installing manufacturing cells to increase efficiency frequently requires reorganizing the entire production process.
Some interesting sites to surf for FMS are:
The problem is that many plants produce multiple products on the same assembly line. The right part must be at the right place at the right time and any program to control this process must run in real time. In the US land is inexpensive so traditional US manufacturing solved this difficult problem by having parts bins at each station so that the workers could pick out the correct part. A simplified schematic of this type of assembly line is shown in the diagram below:
This type of assembly line has many serious defects. First is much inventory is tied up in the form of work in progress, that is the parts in the bins. The firm does not obtain an economic return on these parts until the product is sold. In countries where land is expensive this form of assembly requires extra space for the parts bins. Finally, having parts in bins does not require much emphasis on quality control since the worker can look through the bin to find a good part. In traditional Detroit auto production, twenty five percent of the assembly workforce fixed defects at the end of the assembly line.
After WWII the Japanese made many important innovations in manufacturing. Since Japan is about the size of California and only about 15 Obviously, if only one part is available when the product is at each station, then the part must be correct or the entire product is defective. As you might image, this places enormous stress on quality control. While some Japanese firms have been able to goad their suppliers into this level of quality control and obtain instantaneous coordination with suppliers, few firms outside of Japan have been able to successfully implement JIT. For example, in US auto assembly the parts firms are scattered over several states. The manufacturer must keep a supply of parts on hand in case transportation is interrupted by, for example, a major blizzard. Thus, if the parts suppliers are distributed over a wide area it is not optimal to try to reduce the inventory of parts on hand to one.
The US approach to improve the flow of parts and resources to obtain substantial savings through reduction of inventory and wastage is the creation of software inventory control packages. The US contribution is called manufacturing resource planning, MRP, which schedules the flow of parts as part of the forecasted production schedule. A more advanced form of MRP is manufacturing resources planning, MRP II. MRP II also considers the cash flow required to order the parts and pay expenses in the forecasted manufacturing plan. It is important to note that both MRP and MRP II are future oriented plans.
A common feature of both MRP and JIT is the emphasis on reducing inventory and making factories more efficient. JIT places more emphasis on efficiency and quality.
Another aspect of automation in parts manufacturing is how parts are delivered to their assembly point in a factory. In many older manufacturing plants parts are handled as many as 10 to 15 times from the time they enter the factory until they reach their assembly station. Obviously, the more a part is handled the greater the chance for a fiasco. One advance in manufacturing automation is to automate the delivery of parts to their final destination.
Ideally, parts from outside suppliers are handled twice. Once when they are arrive at the factory and once when they are assembled into the product. One of the first firms in the US to do this was Apple in the production of the first Macintosh around 1982. Jobs and the chief engineer, Irwin, spent two years (probably part time) studying Japanese production methods. The original Macintosh factory incorporated three basic concepts:
a. Just in time parts delivery
b. Linear production system
c. Good environment for workers.
The first Mac had about 500 parts. To supply the parts to the linear assembly line, Apple installed three automatic parts delivery systems and one manual system:
a. Totes or plastic bins: These stored electronic parts
b. Overhead rail: This delivered bulkier items.
c. Automatically guided vehicles(AGV): Delivered other items
d. Humans delivered screws once a month or so because automating this delivery would be too expensive.
The trend in automatic delivery of parts is in making advances in AGV systems and automatic warehouses. To eliminate the possibility of a Murphy's Law type foul up, parts should be handled twice: once when they arrive and twice when they are installed on the product. When they arrive, they would be placed in an automatic warehouse until needed. The program controlling the assembly process would send parts automatically to the various assembly sites as needed.
As has been pointed out, about 25%of the assembly workforce was engaged in repairing defects when the autos rolled off the assembly line Before the recent move to quality control by US auto manufacturers. The old style quality control, at which the Germans were the masters, was to have teams of inspectors at various stations and test the products. Because QC was thought to require additional workers, QC was considered an added cost. Hence as you might expect, higher quality products would cost more.
The new approach to quality control totally upended the cost quality relationships. In the 1930s the concepts of statistical quality control, SQC, were invented in the US. After WW II, Deming and Juran, SQC experts, could not convince US manufacturers to adopt SQC. Deming and Juran then went to Japan where they were treated like heroes as the Japanese manufacturers rapidly adopted SQC, which enables manufacturing engineers to identify problems in the production process without inspectors. The new style Japanese approach to quality control is to use better methodology-statistical quality control and to design quality into the product rather than determine the quality after the fact using inspectors. To make continual improvements in quality a permanent part of the factory Japanese managers organized workers into quality circles where through weekly meetings ideas from the plant floor were reviewed and the best ones implemented. By eliminating the need for repair workers and inspectors, the new approach saves money and creates satisfied customers. Such an approach to quality control is necessary to run JIT inventory control.
Since the 1980s US and European firms have imitated Japanese quality control concepts. For example, the quality of US automobiles has greatly improved and is slowly closing on the constantly improving Japanese quality standards. Currently, the Europeans have created in international quality standard called ISO9000. Many US firms are becoming certified as having meet these standards.
Some interesting sites to surf for parts coordination and quality are:
Many of you have gained your impressions of robots from watching science fiction movies. Before reading the material on robots, you should first view some robotic animations about robots.
From these videos it should be obvious to you that your hand has much greater dexterity than a robot hand. Also, a great deal of effort is required to get robots to perform tasks that humans consider very boring.
Once programmed, however, a robot can perform a task repeatedly without getting tired or bored.
An industrial robot is generally an arm with a gripper and some capacity for movement such as straight lines and rotations. Japan has been successful with robots capable of two straight movements and two rotations; whereas, the US is going for all 6 degrees of freedom. More advanced robots have microprocessors as brains. Sequences of motion for the robot can be programmed into memory by leading the robot through the desired sequences or programming the robot. Even more advanced robots have artificial senses such as sight, touch, force.
A fundamental problem in the assembly of industrial products is fitting pieces with close tolerances together such as gears or placing a weld in exactly the correct place. A human is an excellent assembler because we automatically make minor adjustments in position to fit parts together correctly. If a robot without sight tries to do the same it must know exactly where the two parts are in space and the sequence of motions to fit them together. Lacking the ability to make corrections, the robot can easily jam or wedge the two parts together. The initial progress in assembly automation was with robots without senses. These initial successes required considerable effort to overcome the orientation problem.
Robots without senses are currently used in painting and welding automobiles. In painting, the robot is superior to the human because the robot does not need a fresh air supply and protection from dangerous chemicals. Moreover, painting is tolerant to deviations in the positioning of the paint gun with respect to the automobile frame. In welding auto frames together, the robot is also superior given the strength required to handle the welders and the adverse conditions under which the welds must be made. The equipment to have the frames exactly aligned to make the welds costs much more than the robots. Also, Kawasaki was able to program a robot without senses to assembly a motorcycle gearbox by having the robot gripper vibrate slightly to compensate for inaccurate positioning.
Advances in the use of robots in assembly have required the development of robots with senses. When a human assembles a product of component of a product he can usually identify the component parts instinctively without much thought. To create a program which gives a robot the capacity to pick up randomly arranged parts is a major undertaking. To provide a robot with a camera so that it can see is no problem. What is a problem is providing the robot with the machine intelligence to interpret the input from the camera. One solution is to have the parts to be assembled arrive in exactly the right orientation. This is expensive; thus, while acceptable for mass production, it is inefficient for batch production. Some success is being achieved at creating machine intelligence which can recognize parts in an arbitrary setting. Work is progressing to give robots such senses as sight, touch, force. With these sense a robot can be programmed to make minor corrections to the sequences of steps it makes.
Much current success in assembly by robots with senses is achieved by greatly simplifying the task of identifying alternatives. In production this can be achieved by using bar codes similar to the ones used in grocery stores. Bradly-Allen has a plant which automatically assembles many kinds of controllers for electric motors on the same assembly line. Robots know which sequence of operations to perform on each product coming down the assembly line by reading the bar code on the product. Robots with senses are also used for quality control checking in this plant.
IBM created a plant here in Austin which employed robots with senses to assemble laptop computers. The robots were controlled by PC-ATs. This technology will probably be used to assemble all IBM personal computers in the near future. Without significant labor costs, IBM can compete with the clones. Robots, once programmed, put the right chip in the right slot - something humans do not always do. As the number of component parts in electronic goods is generally small, robotic assembly in this area will proceed quickly.
Robots can currently assemble electronic products such as laptop computers, gear boxes, electric motors, and other components. With each new plant to assemble a product such as an auto more and more of the assembly will be automated. Since robots are not humans the jobs they do best differ from humans. Furthermore the best assembly by robots frequently requires a complete redesign of the product and manufacturing procedure to take advantage of the capabilities of robots. This product redesign usually involves simplification and reduction of the number of parts and consequently, usually results in greater reliability.
Some interesting sites to surf for robotic assembly are:
This is the hard part of automation. Advances are taking place in each of the steps of automation. Integration of all the steps is currently impossible because the various types of machines are incompatible. One step in the advance of automation and the integration of steps is the creation of standards. Standards in the marketplace are determined by professional groups or the dominant player. IBM, the dominant player, set the standards for PCs. Standards have been established for CAD graphics. GM has devised a language called MAP so that all machines in manufacturing can talk to each other and this protocol has promoted the development of manufacturing communication standards. Standards ensure compatibility between equipment and small players adopt the standards to ensure a market for their products. Standards allow the small firm to specialize in a niche market knowing its equipment will be compatible with whatever equipment comes along. Currently (1995) there are several competing protocols for factory LANS.
Standards for CAD drawings have been adopted industrywide and now CAD is being integrated with FMS. In 1992 after a 5 year research program costing $3.5M a research group at a Dutch university created a startup to market their program which would create the software to run a FMS to create a part designed in CAD program. Their software can be updated and extended to accommodate different types of FMSs. The product is at least 10 times faster than a human planner.
Complete CIM must solve the data problem. A completely automated plant from design to final assembly requires a massive data base with all the designs, the programs to create the parts from the designs, the programs to route the parts to the assembly line, and the programs to assemble the final product. Moreover, this database must be integrated into the office database for sales, accounting and so on. In a completely automated factory, once the design is complete, a program would take that design and automatically create all the sets of instructions for all subsequent steps. The achievement of this goal is some indefinite time in the future. However, more and more the paperwork associated with manufacturing is shifting to electronics.
Some interesting sites to surf for CIM are listed below. Remember, these are partial and not total solutions to CIM:
After WW II, US manufacturing managers assumed they were the greatest and became smugly complacent. Because the Japanese and European manufacturing plants were destroyed during WW II, the US firms initially had little competition and US firms could sell all they could produce, The US made no attempt to innovate new approaches to manufacturing. In addition, US firms padded the number of levels of management to justify higher salaries for the top managers and build bigger empires of flunkies reporting to each manager. They granted organized labor wages settlements out of line with productivity advances. Until recently most US business innovations were in the area of finance with the automation of asset markets, corporate mergers, and junk bond finance.
While the US manufacturing firms went to sleep, the Japanese built new plants with an innovative approach to manufacturing. These innovations in manufacturing should be considered as important as the 19th century US innovations in assembly line manufacturing and replaceable parts.
The Japanese new production philosophy was built on revolutionary approach to quality control, flexibility and short product cycles. We have already discussed the Japanese reorganization to achieve total quality control in their products.
a. Flexibility: The US standard for manufacturing was to organize very long production runs to reduce the unit cost of setup. The Japanese philosophy has been to create plants which could switch from producing one product to another quickly. This eliminated the need for production for inventory. (Japan with much higher cost of land than the US has very high economic incentives to save space.) The economic value of flexibility is that a firm can produce for final demand and not for inventory. Better matching of supply and demand results in better prices and greater profits.
b. Short product cycles: The Japanese firm organizes the design and development of product in a design team which has representatives from all functions of the firm. The team leader has the authority to make decisions. Coordination between the various aspects of the firm is automatic because they are represented in the design team. A problem in the previous organization for design was that the design team would finish the design and present it to the manufacturing engineers to set up the production process. The manufacturing engineers would take one look at the design and send it back to the original designers with the comment we can not make this. The two groups would then redesign a product which could be manufactured. With design teams the coordination takes place before the design is released to manufacturing.
In contrast, until recently the US firm with its multilevel hierarchy had no one in charge in the design process. Conflicts would be resolved by vice-presidents. Moreover, design was not coordinated with other aspects of the firm such as manufacturing.
Since the 1980s the US manufacturing firms are playing catchup with the Japanese. The one area in which we are ahead in software development in CAD, CAE and CIM. The main US problems are:
a. Defective primary and secondary education system: The US does not produce world class high school graduates. The US student only goes to school 180 days versus 240 in Japan. US students in the long summer break forget what they have learned and have to be retaught. US school do not give students much homework; instead they emphasize extra curricular activities such as football. Consequently, US firms must spent billions to teach workers even the simplest algebra in order to implement statistical process control.
b. US MBA students are taught finance. The best until recently the best wanted to go to Wall Street and only the rejects went into manufacturing. Moreover, US managers have a short planning horizon which precludes making the necessary investment to innovate in manufacturing.
c. Accounting for Automation: Until recently, US accounting practice in manufacturing was defective because accountant were placing a value on automation expenditures only for reduction in direct labor. They placed no value on increased quality control and greater flexibility.
d. Poor Management-Labor Relations: Until recently the US management style was top down in that managers gave orders to workers and rarely listened to them. Labor unions created rigid work rules which made reorganizing the workplace very difficult. In addition, executive privileges angered the workers. For example, Japanese executives listen to workers suggestions, eat with the workers in their cafeterias, do not have executive parking lots, and take pay cuts themselves before asking the workers to take a pay cut.
Since the 80s, surviving US manufacturing managers are making a painful transition to world class status in manufacturing. Accounting practice in manufacturing has been upgraded. Manufacturing firm have been reorganized to imitate the Japanese with design teams to obtain better products in much shorter time. Business leaders are now painfully aware that they must work with politicians in order to improve the educational process. Universities are now emphasizing manufacturing. We are talking about a decade or two before significant progress in education reforms will be realized. That is why as a patriotic citizen, it is my duty to get you students to do some work
Innovation in automation is a difficult task for a firm because a major renovation of an old plant is expensive and creating a new plant is very expensive. To achieve an innovation that is achieve sufficiently better performance such that the investment can be considered an innovation requires much practical learning through experimentation to achieve the potential of the new equipment. Because firms need to justify there investments to stockholders they need to achieve better performance within the time span of a year or two. Given the constraints operating on managers, manufacturing innovations are generally a sequence of small advances.
GM through its mistakes illuminated the problems of manufacturing innovations. GM, early in the 80s, set a bold strategy for manufacturing innovation. They are going to make major steps to automate manufacturing operations to achieve two objectives. First, they would leapfrog the Japanese, and second, they would solve their labor problems (rigid work rules and a rigid seniority system) by eliminating labor as a significant factor. After an $40Binvestment the magnitude of GM's mistakes are now apparent. They tried to advance automation too quickly. They implemented production technology that was beyond the state of the art. Because the technology was untried, they had to spend $Bsgetting it to work. Instead of running factories to produce goods to make a profit, they were forced to run the factories as experiments.
To make matters worse GM entered an agreement with Toyota to make Corollas and Prisms(Novas) in an old factory in California. Toyota supplied the managers and GM supplied the workers. The Toyota managers modified Japanese style management, which emphases teamwork, flexibility and good upward communication, to achieve Japanese levels of quality with little automation. Toyota immediately used the acquired knowledge of North American laborers to set up successful factories in Kentucky and Ontario. GM finally wised up and used the new management labor relations in their successful Saturn plant.
Innovations in manufacturing require much more than trying to replace existing equipment with more automated equipment. A major source of innovation in manufacturing is better organization and better use of humans. One example of an organizational innovation is the creation of decisive design teams with executives from all parts of the firm. This greatly reduces the design time are results in market-oriented products which are easier to manufacture. In organizational areas US manufacturing firms are imitating Japanese firms.
Automation will gradually decrease the cost of batch production to the level of mass production and create much greater flexibility in manufacturing. Flexibility is needed to enable suppliers to more rapidly respond to changes in demand. For example, Chrysler spent $160Mto enable an assembly plant to shift between two types of cars. In the limit (several hundred years), you will be able to design an object at home and have the object manufactured automatically at mass production prices.
Some interesting sites to surf for competitiveness are:
Automation will affect all industries manipulating physical objects. Consider agriculture first and the harvesting of tomatoes for catchup in particular. To build a machine which would mechanically harvest tomatoes, the first step was to engage the geneticists to create a tomato vine on which all the tomatoes ripened at the same time. This enabled the machine to cut the vines off and shake off the tomatoes. The problem with the first tomato vine with tomatoes which ripened at the same time was that they tended to split open when they fell from the conveyor belt into the truck. This necessitated going back to the geneticist to obtain a tomato vine on which all the tomatoes ripened at the same time and all the tomatoes had thick skins. The third round was to obtain a tomato which was square and would not roll off the conveyor belt. Does the tomato taste good? Well, maybe in the future they will address that problem. Work is progressing on machines to harvest oranges and other fruit.
Construction will probably be automated more slowly than manufacturing. Manufacturing takes place in much more controlled conditions and the number of contingencies are fewer than in construction. Construction will be automated by creating modules in factories to be assembled on site. The handling of physical objects in the services is also being automated. Utilities such as electric power generation are similar to continuous process manufactured items and are highly automated. Computers have made possible the shipping of sealed standard sized containers. RR cars are also controlled by computers. Warehouses have been automated. At Federal Express, the sorting of packages is automated for overnight delivery.
Some interesting sites to surf for automation in agriculture and the services are: