MKII Posted December 17, 2013 Share Posted December 17, 2013 COLOGNE, Germany - Ford is introducing the company’s first fully automated wheel assembly facility at its Cologne-Niehl manufacturing plant. The state-of-the-art system is manned by three robots, took just six months to design, plan and implement, and uses advanced camera technology to match the right wheels for each model. Video showing assembly (German audio with English subtitles) http://www.at.ford.com/news/multimedia/pages/default.aspx?t=v&n=1260 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4d4evr-1 Posted December 17, 2013 Share Posted December 17, 2013 we are heading toward fewer and fewer jobs, what will you do then? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DearbornDerek Posted December 18, 2013 Share Posted December 18, 2013 Looks good on paper...But what happens when they speed up the line... Back in 2008, Ford bought two brand new robots for DTP to shoot the bolts to secure the box to the frame....Five years later those robots just sit there because they could not keep up with the line speed... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NickF1011 Posted December 18, 2013 Share Posted December 18, 2013 we are heading toward fewer and fewer jobs, what will you do then? Still need engineers to design the robots, and technicians to repair them. Automation has been slowly taking over the assembly line for decades. The job market has adapted pretty well so far. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silvrsvt Posted December 18, 2013 Share Posted December 18, 2013 Still need engineers to design the robots, and technicians to repair them. Automation has been slowly taking over the assembly line for decades. The job market has adapted pretty well so far. Well its not good if you're not educated or want to take additional training.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NickF1011 Posted December 18, 2013 Share Posted December 18, 2013 Well its not good if you're not educated or want to take additional training.... True, but historically rare that the job market has ever been particularly good for those without an education or training. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akirby Posted December 18, 2013 Share Posted December 18, 2013 Well its not good if you're not educated or want to take additional training.... If you chose not to get an education or you chose not to better yourself through training or learning something new then that's your problem. Ditch diggers got replaced with backhoes. Blacksmiths got replaced with steel factories. Telegraph operators were replaced by the telephone. Things change and workers have to adapt. You can't expect to have an unskilled job for life without having to do anything. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silvrsvt Posted December 19, 2013 Share Posted December 19, 2013 You can't expect to have an unskilled job for life without having to do anything. I don't disagree with you, but that that curve is a bit sharper then others, you can be working on an assembly line one day, then replaced by a robot or whatever the next and well have no job or possibility to find a job. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NickF1011 Posted December 19, 2013 Share Posted December 19, 2013 I don't disagree with you, but that that curve is a bit sharper then others, you can be working on an assembly line one day, then replaced by a robot or whatever the next and well have no job or possibility to find a job. For the most part, that sort of changeover occurs pretty gradually throughout an industry though. There will be other plants to find work at that haven't become as automated yet. As time goes by, the larger workforce simply shrinks through attrition. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akirby Posted December 19, 2013 Share Posted December 19, 2013 I don't disagree with you, but that that curve is a bit sharper then others, you can be working on an assembly line one day, then replaced by a robot or whatever the next and well have no job or possibility to find a job. You can be working at any job one day and gone the next whether it's due to automation or poor performance or the economy or obamacare. Unskilled workers lose their jobs every day (just like skilled and professional jobs). Assembly line workers aren't unique. But if you sit on your ass and expect your job to continue for life without any changes or having to learn anything new then you can't complain when you get left behind. I've been in IT for 27 years and I'm learning new things every day. I'm sick of the victim's mentality that causes people to just sit around and wait for someone else to take care of them. It may require extra training or even moving to a new state but that's what people do when they take personal responsibility for their lives. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silvrsvt Posted December 19, 2013 Share Posted December 19, 2013 I'm sick of the victim's mentality that causes people to just sit around and wait for someone else to take care of them. It may require extra training or even moving to a new state but that's what people do when they take personal responsibility for their lives. been there done that..and not disagreeing with what your saying either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CurtisH Posted December 19, 2013 Share Posted December 19, 2013 You can be working at any job one day and gone the next whether it's due to automation or poor performance or the economy or obamacare. Unskilled workers lose their jobs every day (just like skilled and professional jobs). Assembly line workers aren't unique. But if you sit on your ass and expect your job to continue for life without any changes or having to learn anything new then you can't complain when you get left behind. I've been in IT for 27 years and I'm learning new things every day. I'm sick of the victim's mentality that causes people to just sit around and wait for someone else to take care of them. It may require extra training or even moving to a new state but that's what people do when they take personal responsibility for their lives. I've been in IT for 26 years. It's amazing how much I've learned in just this past year. I agree that you do what you have to do to maintain a relevant set of job skills. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akirby Posted December 19, 2013 Share Posted December 19, 2013 I've been in IT for 26 years. It's amazing how much I've learned in just this past year. I agree that you do what you have to do to maintain a relevant set of job skills. Could you imagine still trying to be a COBOL programmer today? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fordmantpw Posted December 19, 2013 Share Posted December 19, 2013 Could you imagine still trying to be a COBOL programmer today? Or an Oracle DBA in 5 years? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akirby Posted December 19, 2013 Share Posted December 19, 2013 Or an Oracle DBA in 5 years? Ha ha. Or Windoze anything..... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silvrsvt Posted December 19, 2013 Share Posted December 19, 2013 Well if you have the basics down already, its not that hard to learn the new stuff...most of the time when it come to IT work Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akirby Posted December 19, 2013 Share Posted December 19, 2013 Well if you have the basics down already, its not that hard to learn the new stuff...most of the time when it come to IT work It's not hard to learn a new factory job either. That's why it's called unskilled labor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CurtisH Posted December 20, 2013 Share Posted December 20, 2013 Could you imagine still trying to be a COBOL programmer today? Hey, I started as a COBOL programmer! And no, I could not imagine still writing COBOL. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akirby Posted December 20, 2013 Share Posted December 20, 2013 Hey, I started as a COBOL programmer! And no, I could not imagine still writing COBOL. I was hired in 86 to do COBOL but midway through initial training they came in the class and said they had 6 spots in this new group doing something called "Unix" and did anybody want to volunteer. 6 of us broke an arm raising our hands and we were the only 6. The rest - as they say - is history. I asked some of my friends why they wanted to stay with COBOL and they said "job security - just look at all the job ads for COBOL programmers". Then I explained to them that while there may have been 200 COBOL job ads there were probably 4000 qualified applicants. With Unix back then there may have only been 10 jobs but there were probably only 5 qualified applicants. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fordmantpw Posted December 20, 2013 Share Posted December 20, 2013 This COBOL. Does it have something to do with punch cards? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akirby Posted December 20, 2013 Share Posted December 20, 2013 This COBOL. Does it have something to do with punch cards? I have no idea. Ask one of the old guys...... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
probowler Posted December 20, 2013 Share Posted December 20, 2013 The Pizza Hut I work at still runs on Linux :/ Infact so does the local key bank! They're allso a bunch of sexist pigs, but whatever.... That's another rant. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StevenCaylor Posted December 20, 2013 Share Posted December 20, 2013 This COBOL. Does it have something to do with punch cards? LOL, I remember after getting out of the Navy back in the early 80's, I took a refresher course in programming that included COBOL. Even the simplest program required a big stack of IBM 80 column cards. After that experience, I vowed never to get into the business side of programming. I went with the science/engineering route with Pascal/Fortran/C/C++. Had mainly TS/SCI DOD jobs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fordmantpw Posted December 20, 2013 Share Posted December 20, 2013 LOL, I remember after getting out of the Navy back in the early 80's, I took a refresher course in programming that included COBOL. Even the simplest program required a big stack of IBM 80 column cards. After that experience, I vowed never to get into the business side of programming. I went with the science/engineering route with Pascal/Fortran/C/C++. Had mainly TS/SCI DOD jobs. I had 2 C++ classes back in college when I was an electrical engineering major. I hated it. With a passion. I attribute most of that to the instructor, who couldn't speak but about 10 words of English well. Now, I'm primarily a C# developer (with several other MS languages as well as SQL thrown in). However, the most fun I ever had programming was old Ladder Logic programming Programmable Logic Controllers for a summer internship. It was working with the automation for seat testing at a Johnson Controls seat plant. It was a lot of fun to put the engineering and programming sides together. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silvrsvt Posted December 20, 2013 Share Posted December 20, 2013 Never got into programming....my math skills suck (barely passed algebra, so that doesn't help)...I do networking and admin stuff... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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