[HN Gopher] We are starting to operate our CNC machines remotely
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       We are starting to operate our CNC machines remotely
        
       Author : Sharapolas
       Score  : 99 points
       Date   : 2021-02-19 14:53 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (1d.works)
 (TXT) w3m dump (1d.works)
        
       | soheil wrote:
       | Pretty epic. But doesn't it need constant lubrication for the
       | head not to get too warm?
        
         | PragmaticPulp wrote:
         | Yes! Most CNC setups will flood the cutting area with coolant.
         | It moderates tool temperature and also helps carry away chips.
         | 
         | The machines have filters to recover and recycle the coolant.
         | They might also have augurs to carry chips out of the machine.
         | 
         | The coolant can be topped up periodically between shifts as
         | needed, when the waste chips are collected.
         | 
         | At scale, these things can be automated even further. For
         | medium sized shops it's easy to pay someone for a couple hours
         | of labor to do it every few days.
        
         | a2tech wrote:
         | Typically only when cutting metal. And harder metal especially.
         | Wood and the like will often have an spray of air directed at
         | the cutting bit but thats simply to help clear away chips and
         | clean the cutting surface. Helps keep a nice finish and good
         | visibility.
        
           | megraf wrote:
           | Actually, it's a little different. Using coolant is the norm
           | even when doing mild steels. You can remove material quicker,
           | your part remains cooler, and your tools remain cleaner.
           | 
           | There's even cuttings bits that have integral cooling (holes
           | in the cutting surface).
        
             | a1369209993 wrote:
             | Pretty sure even the mildest steel is still a hard metal.
             | Soft metal would be something like copper or aluminum IIRC.
             | (Or lead or gold, moreso, but you probably wouldn't want to
             | be machining those for obvious reasons.)
        
             | a2tech wrote:
             | Right--I support a fair number of machine shops and they're
             | all moving to CNC (although they're using a lot manual
             | machines still). 5 axis is nice and there's a surprising
             | amount of manual tooling changes.
             | 
             | We had a problem where one of the integral cooling loops
             | had a tube come off and it sprayed the better part of a 50
             | gallon drum of coolant all over the shop before someone got
             | over and hit the e-stop.
        
               | duckfang wrote:
               | That sounds correct. Unless you have a sensor, there's no
               | way to make a meaningful detection and decision to stop
               | something.
               | 
               | And sensors that are reliable and durable cost $$$$.
        
         | myself248 wrote:
         | Yeah, watch some CNC videos on youtube or whatever! The
         | (usually blue) liquid spraying everywhere is coolant.
         | 
         | Fancier machines will have a hollow spindle and can actually
         | force the coolant through an also-hollow tool, so it emerges
         | right near the cutting face. The simpler approach just uses a
         | nozzle pointed in the general direction of the cutter. In
         | between, there are programmable nozzles....
        
       | joshdick wrote:
       | Now that's it possible for the machines to be operated remotely,
       | how long till those operator jobs are offshored?
        
         | megraf wrote:
         | you should read the article my friend :)
        
       | yrgulation wrote:
       | My master's degree project was cncs designed to operate like
       | servers in a service oriented architecture.
       | 
       | Each machine exposed an api (robot arm for feeding, cnc for
       | machining), jobs were routed using a queue server like rabbit mq
       | (when a machine becomes available it just consumes events). I
       | built the cncs myself using raspberry pis. Basically, i built a
       | blue print of a fully automated factory.
        
       | sneak wrote:
       | > _First, was the network setup. We needed to merge multi-site
       | networks into a mesh topology network where all the nodes could
       | be interconnected which was solved using a hub and spoke topology
       | VPN. Although, it does have its own drawbacks it had a good cost-
       | benefit ratio when it comes to setup and deployment and is
       | working for us for now._
       | 
       | How is "mesh" solved with "hub and spoke"? If your hub goes
       | offline, everything stops; the whole point of a mesh is to avoid
       | the SPOF.
       | 
       | > _Next, was building the dashboard which not only required the
       | making of the UI but required figuring out how we're going to
       | expose and manage resources in our shop network. We decided to
       | build the backend in the spirit of Kubernetes, so it is easy to
       | manage at scale with the addition of new sensors, machines and
       | full-blown sites themselves._
       | 
       | What does that mean? Docker containers?
        
         | d00bianista wrote:
         | IPIP/IPsec and OSPF would do nicely for efficient site-to-site
         | meshing.
         | 
         | But, adding docker to the equation makes it much more
         | complicated. I'd prefer just operating the machines over IP and
         | get rid of all remote desktop related latency all together.
        
       | fudged71 wrote:
       | This is terrifying and impressive :)
       | 
       | We built a similar system for 3D printers. There's nothing quite
       | like intentionally giving access to someone on the other side of
       | the globe and having them make something for you in front of your
       | hands and eyes. It's not _technically_ teleporting, but close
       | enough to have that same magical feeling.
        
       | spyder wrote:
       | It's called lights-out manufacturing:
       | 
       |  _" Factories that employ "lights-out manufacturing" are fully
       | automated and require no human presence on-site."_
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lights_out_(manufacturing)
        
         | u678u wrote:
         | For some reason this scares me at a core level more than
         | anything else. Seems inevitable that Skynet will control the
         | factory sooner or later.
        
         | riskneutral wrote:
         | If I'm not mistaken, Apple's machine shops are almost fully
         | automated. They bought an enormous number of CNC machines to
         | make MacBooks, etc.
        
           | varjag wrote:
           | Of course noone solders SMD or mills device chassis manually,
           | but top-level assembly is mostly manual labor.
        
             | ska wrote:
             | That's not going to be done in the machine shops though, to
             | GP's point.
        
       | megraf wrote:
       | I moonlight at a machine shop. I'm not a machinist, and I'm
       | hardly a machine operator.
       | 
       | Machine shops need bodies to do a few things (some of which OP
       | mentioned) loading materials, removing materials, changing broken
       | cutting bits, cleaning the machines (especially if you're cutting
       | something like magnesium).
       | 
       | Machine shops also need bodies to build jigs to hold pieces to
       | the machine table while the machines remove material (think 5
       | axis pieces, especially).
       | 
       | Despite all of this - there's an amazing amount of automation at
       | play. Tool changes, coolant, temperature monitoring, the list
       | goes on. I'm currently building some automation hardware and
       | software so we can start to fill the gap of 'dead' time where
       | machinists are pressing buttons, loading in blanks, and are bored
       | out of their minds.
       | 
       | It's such an interesting space.
        
         | blackrock wrote:
         | Maybe someone can build a robot to service and clean the
         | machines?
        
         | polishdude20 wrote:
         | The other day, I realized our Haas CNC machine actually had a
         | programmable coolant nozzle. You can program the nozzle to
         | spray coolant at various locations!
        
           | myself248 wrote:
           | Yup, it's fun to make a "wash the part off" program that
           | drives the table back and forth a few times with the nozzle
           | at progressive angles. Or aim right at the perimeter of a big
           | face mill.
        
         | Quequau wrote:
         | Moonlighting at a machine shop is something that I am very
         | interested in doing. How did you wind up with such a position?
        
           | paddy_m wrote:
           | I wrote an email to friends years ago about a side job I got
           | at a machine shop while working in tech, it was quite well
           | received. email in my profile, contact me and I'll send it to
           | you.
        
           | Ccecil wrote:
           | Depends on where you live. I recommend just going around and
           | meeting machinists. Look into local meetings...Society of
           | Manufacturing and such. Typically there are things like shop
           | tours put on monthly (non-pandemic times). Talk to local
           | machine shop instructors and/or metal suppliers and see who
           | might be interested in hiring...they usually know everyone.
           | 
           | My area has many very, very large machine shops but it has a
           | larger number of small "mom and pop" shops which just run a
           | few machines. I have found that the people who run either
           | type are equally as approachable...it is hit and miss if they
           | are willing to even let you in the shop at all without NDAs
           | and such...then there are others who have no issues with it.
           | 
           | Most of the really difficult to learn stuff in the field is
           | fixturing and CAM setup. Once that is layed out it is mostly
           | just changing parts and watching the machine run...but there
           | is a lot to be learned while that is going on.
        
             | HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
             | I've never moonlighted, but I agree about the
             | approachability.
             | 
             | Some time ago I lived in an industrial city with lots of
             | small machine shops and especially lots of Screw Machine
             | shops. I found that they really appreciated that I was
             | interested in what they did and were willing to show me
             | around.
             | 
             | Fast forward to about a year or two ago and I had to call
             | on a prospective customer with a sales person. I didn't
             | know until I got there that they were a branch of a well
             | known workholding manufacturer and our contact offered to
             | give me a tour of their machine shop. Pure heaven: I've
             | never seen such a collection of modern, massive machine
             | tools. The toolchanger alone on one of these machines was
             | bigger than most VMC's I had ever seen. Their pallets were
             | multiple feet long (not even sure if you call them pallets
             | at that point) and ran on external tracks from machine to
             | machine. Easily the biggest lights-out shop I've ever seen.
             | 
             | That was by far the most fun part of the sales call :-)
        
             | Quequau wrote:
             | Thanks for the reply. When / if the pandemic ends I have to
             | move and I am seriously considering taking a few machining
             | courses at a community college and changing careers.
        
         | dogma1138 wrote:
         | You also need bodies to listen to the tool... ever since I
         | build my small CNC machine I've learned just how important it
         | is to listen to the cutting especially when you are doing
         | adaptive passes to make sure your software doesn't cock up the
         | cuts.
         | 
         | This is probably the biggest area where i can see machine
         | learning be actually useful with acoustic sensors.
         | 
         | I'm not an experienced machinist by any stretch of the
         | imagination but even with my relatively small experience I can
         | tell how good or bad the finish of a cut is going to be based
         | on the sound the machine makes.
        
           | iancmceachern wrote:
           | Great idea,, it already exists: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wi
           | ki/CNC_machine_tool_monitoring_...
        
             | dogma1138 wrote:
             | I would assume it does especially on 6-7 figure machines
             | but I think even with basic microphones this might be a
             | good application for ML at the small shop and hobbyist
             | levels and I haven't seen that yet.
        
         | ortusdux wrote:
         | A few years back I toured a machine shop staffed primarily by
         | blind individuals. The Javits-Wagner-O'Day Act requires federal
         | agencies purchase some select goods made by the blind when
         | possible. Roughly three hundred employees, 90%+ somewhere
         | between legally blind and fully blind, and 1/3rd or so also
         | deaf.
         | 
         | Someone more skilled than I could and should fill a book with
         | the accessibility changes they have made over 50 years of
         | operation. Every single inch of the place had fascinating
         | design details. All machines were laser fenced. Vacuum work
         | holding with audio alignment sensors. All paths had a raised
         | curb. All readouts on CNCs were capable of displaying text one
         | 15" tall letter at a time, or reading G-code aloud or via
         | braille. All offices have one bright wall and one dark wall to
         | provide high contrast for sign language interpreters.
         | 
         | One of the sighted employees I met works in the accessibility
         | dept. redesigning systems to be compatible with various
         | disabilities. He had a full lab of 3d printers, CNCS, and
         | enough other equipment to make a makerspace jealous.
         | 
         | The company also did some amazing outreach through their
         | charity. The provided dogs, housing, and general mobility
         | training (how to navigate busses, etc.).
         | 
         | I should check in and see how they are coping with covid.
        
           | zachrose wrote:
           | What was this company? That sounds amazing.
        
             | ortusdux wrote:
             | The Lighthouse for the Blind. I donate to their charity
             | annually.
             | 
             | Here is a link to a virtual tour of the facility I visited:
             | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzfCNQatw00
        
               | calvinmorrison wrote:
               | This is absolutely the coolest thing I have seen so far
               | this year. They have more videos where individual works
               | explain how the work from a call center operator to a
               | machinist journeyman!
        
           | tsss wrote:
           | Is laser fencing not mandatory in the US?
        
             | profsnuggles wrote:
             | Laser fencing is the worst, pressure mats are approximately
             | 1000x better. Our machine with the laser fence is always
             | stopping for no reason because there was some dust. I just
             | cut 50 sheets of MDF yea there is going to be some dust.
             | 
             | In woodworking the new trend is to put pads on the gantry
             | with pressure sensors so if the machine smacks you it
             | stops.
             | 
             | That is really great when you are testing new programs you
             | can see what is happening without binoculars. The only
             | downside is that they limit the max rapid speed on the
             | machines so when it hits someone they are much less likely
             | to get knocked over.
        
               | bluGill wrote:
               | How do those systems stop hair or clothing from getting
               | sucked into the spinning bits? Those two modes have
               | always been the more dangerous ones for spinning tools.
        
               | profsnuggles wrote:
               | The gantry is enclosed, it's not possible to get close to
               | the router unless you are doing something really...
               | really wrong.
               | 
               | This is the machine I was running like 20 minutes before
               | posting that comment.
               | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AuwwPdBSf8
               | 
               | I have no idea why the people in that video cut a hole in
               | their door. Seems like a really stupid idea to me. But
               | you can see in a normal machine that someone hasn't
               | modified to be more dangerous you can't get to the the
               | spiny sharp bits.
        
             | aj7 wrote:
             | No not in ordinary machine shops.
        
           | oauea wrote:
           | Wow, that sounds incredibly inefficient and unsafe.
        
             | benlivengood wrote:
             | Humans are inefficient and unsafe machines, to be sure.
             | Soft and fragile, slow to respond, 98% blind to the EM
             | spectrum, insanely low communication bandwidth, unusually
             | difficult to motivate, prone to acts of defiance,
             | uncalibrated and wandering accelerometers and rotation
             | sensors, very low precision parts, require a host of
             | special atmospheric and environmental conditions to be met,
             | etc.
             | 
             | We're replacing them as fast as we can, honest.
        
               | burnte wrote:
               | The problem with replacements is the installed base is
               | HUGE.
        
               | earleybird wrote:
               | And they self-replicate - but we're working on that too.
        
               | neolog wrote:
               | Nice one.
        
             | bordercases wrote:
             | On what metrics?
        
             | andrepd wrote:
             | Many things are "inefficient", such as building stairs and
             | a ramp where just stairs would be cheaper. Then again
             | there's more to life than that.
        
             | ska wrote:
             | > Wow, that sounds incredibly inefficient and unsafe.
             | 
             | Only if imagine an unrealistic system where these people
             | were asked to adapt to an existing shop floor, rather than
             | the other way around.
        
             | bluGill wrote:
             | I didn't catch anything unsafe. They have laser trip wires
             | anywhere things might be dangerous. This is becomming
             | common industry practice anyway because even people who can
             | see can miss seeing something - a common problem when doing
             | repetitive tasks is to make it faster and faster without
             | realizing that you are getting closer and closer to
             | something unsafe until you loose your arm.
             | 
             | It isn't clear how inefficient they really are. Sure it
             | takes longer to explain to a blind person who to clean the
             | chips off, but in the end it is just a broom (vacuum?) and
             | the only need to do ensure they get everything. Once you
             | train them they have it. Likewise it takes a little longer
             | to explain where the hold downs are then to explain it, but
             | not that much and there are good reasons for hold down
             | placement so once the blind person learns the location
             | there isn't much more training.
             | 
             | I assume they have a few sighted people around for the
             | unique setups that are not enough like something else that
             | it be put into brial. (deaf but not blind can be good at
             | this)
             | 
             | Again back to my first point: everything they pioneer and
             | make work is something that other industry will be
             | interested in as well. Maybe someone with sight can do it
             | easily today, but often once they perfect a method it is
             | better than what the sighted person can do.
             | 
             | Overall I'd prefer to not be doing manual labor myself, but
             | if you can't handle enough school to get a good degree...
             | I'm glad places like this exist for those who need it.
        
               | ortusdux wrote:
               | Exactly. They are actually efficient enough to be quite
               | competitive in the private sector. They have large
               | contracts with Boeing, and they manufacture a wide
               | variety of things like white boards, backpacks, shovels,
               | canteens, etc.
        
         | dwohnitmok wrote:
         | Many moons ago I also spent a fair amount of time in a machine
         | shop, although never more than in an amateur capacity (I'm not
         | sure I'd call what I did even moonlighting, mainly an
         | enthusiast making small stuff), and I was never using really
         | fancy machines as a result.
         | 
         | What struck me was how just how little was automated, how stuff
         | that was nominally automated still had quite a bit of manual
         | labor. I had always had in my mind that with CNC machines you
         | just stick the metal in the vise, load the program, hit start,
         | and you're good to go, but there's manual calibration, facing
         | off and the like that needs to be done before every run.
         | 
         | For small, simple pieces I would often forgo the CNC automation
         | and just manually make the piece myself, even when I had
         | already made the piece in SolidWorks (and so could easily
         | generate G code).
         | 
         | I've heard that for really fancy machines it's truly a push
         | button process (as long as you feed it precision milled
         | blanks), but I've never had a chance to actually use those.
        
           | extrapickles wrote:
           | You can get electronic probes that measure the stock
           | automatically so you don't need precision blanks. The probe
           | loads in the tool changer so it can be completely automated.
           | Automatic tool setting makes it so operators don't need to
           | measure new tooling in tool holders, and tooling wear can be
           | monitored automatically.
           | 
           | I dabble in running a small machine-shop, and we are able to
           | automate a good chunk of what people still do manually. The
           | stock we use is cheap, straight from the mill stuff as we
           | have the machine measure the stock with an electronic probe.
           | The machines also have 20 pallets, so once the stock is
           | loaded, the operator can leave the machine for 20x the cycle
           | time of a part. The pallets don't even have to be the same
           | product, so we can queue up replacement of inventory with
           | just the quantity that a customer ordered and offer a bunch
           | of made-to-order parts with reasonable turnaround times.
           | 
           | The machines also monitor spindle vibration so they can tell
           | if a tool looses an insert, and the tool-setter is used to
           | check if solid tooling is still intact.
           | 
           | The only manual parts are taking raw materials off the
           | suppliers truck, unloading finished parts (next on automation
           | list), final assembly (working on automation for this),
           | occasionally loading new tools as they wear/break and
           | fulfillment.
        
             | riskneutral wrote:
             | Is this a profitable business?
        
               | extrapickles wrote:
               | If you are careful yes. Doing job shop work (making other
               | peoples parts) is hard to make a good profit as people
               | expect overseas dumping rates.
               | 
               | The real profit comes from making your own products, as
               | then you can force competition to also build their own
               | factory to compete. By having lean production we can have
               | a very large part catalog without having large amounts of
               | inventory for low sales velocity parts.
               | 
               | We have at least a hundred variants that may only sell a
               | dozen or two $100 parts per year, but they only cost us a
               | line in the catalog to maintain the SKU. Since the
               | products are for industrial use, most of our customers
               | like the fact that we have in some cases been making the
               | exact same part for nearly 30 years, which encourages
               | them to design our products into theirs as we never
               | discontinue products, so they don't have to re-engineer
               | theirs (our products in turn get used in machinery that
               | might have a 10-100 unit/year global market).
        
             | dwohnitmok wrote:
             | Wow! That really does sound closer to what I thought CNC
             | meant before I stepped into a machine shop.
             | 
             | That's pretty amazing stuff.
        
               | PragmaticPulp wrote:
               | This rabbit hole goes as deep as your budget allows.
               | 
               | If you're curious, search for Renishaw probes on youtube.
               | They make some of the best mainstream tooling in this
               | space.
        
               | singularity2001 wrote:
               | To turn on the probe, type G65 P9832. The CNC software
               | world needs serious disruption / dev UI updates.
        
             | Animats wrote:
             | _The machines also monitor spindle vibration so they can
             | tell if a tool looses an insert, and the tool-setter is
             | used to check if solid tooling is still intact._
             | 
             | That's a key feature. For unattended operation, you must
             | have good fault detection. This tends to be an overpriced
             | extra cost option on machine tools.
             | 
             | There are a lot of things in industrial automation that
             | cost more than they should. Motors with encoders, for
             | example.
        
               | ska wrote:
               | I don't think actuators are crazy overpriced really. It's
               | true that if you are going to bother packaging them you
               | are probably using decent-to-good quality everything, but
               | that's what you want for non-toy projects anyway. And for
               | toy projects if your budget is really tight no big deal
               | to set up the encoder yourself on this one-off.
        
           | aj7 wrote:
           | That was before "good" machine shops had probes in every
           | machine.
        
           | analog31 wrote:
           | As I understand it, the economics of machine shops are a bit
           | weird because of the financing cost of keeping up with the
           | latest equipment. If you have old machines, and not money to
           | buy new machines, then you run old machines.
           | 
           | The most modern shops are in extremely high demand,
           | expensive, always busy, happy to turn down work. If you can
           | design something in a way that lends itself to conventional
           | techniques, you can get it into a smaller shop that may have
           | some idle capacity, or run on the "tool room" machines in the
           | big shop. The big shops always keep a few old machines around
           | for tooling and jig work, rework, and one-offs.
           | 
           | The smaller shops are also willing to take work that's not
           | 100% detailed, even hand drawings. So you don't necessarily
           | even need a CAD operator. "Do things that don't scale."
           | 
           | In kind of an odd analogy, my old high school band mate built
           | a recording studio from cast-off obsolete equipment that he
           | bought for pennies on the dollar, and it meant that he
           | couldn't take the biggest jobs, but he was instantly
           | profitable and never in debt. Likewise, I have a very small
           | side business that involves some basic metalworking, and I do
           | all of it with powered hand tools and jigs that I made from
           | plywood and carbide drill bushings. My capital cost was under
           | 100 bucks.
        
           | megraf wrote:
           | It's all about the tools the shop has. Sapphire probes (edge
           | finders) aid in a lot of the process. Mastercam allows you to
           | simulate the machine process (and you can usually simulate it
           | completely). Every shop is different - the shop I'm at here
           | has a few lathes, robo-drills, 5th axis, and a few older
           | pieces of hardware (which still are able to receive G-Code).
        
             | dwohnitmok wrote:
             | I was definitely using edge finders (it seems like
             | machining in general would be way way way more work without
             | edge finders) and occasionally Mastercam.
             | 
             | Definitely never used a 5-axis mill or robodrill though.
             | 
             | I guess my main point of comparison was to laser cutters,
             | which really were basically push button automatable in
             | comparison.
             | 
             | Granted the problem is a _lot_ easier (purely 2-D cuts) and
             | the cutter loses a lot of precision for thick material, but
             | any time I got to use a laser cutter I was blown away by
             | easy everything is and kept wondering whether a similar
             | process could ultimately take root for machining.
        
               | jononor wrote:
               | The forces involved in CNC machining is a large
               | complicating factor, compared to laser (or 3d-printing).
               | In a laser one can just throw the material onto the bed,
               | and the results will be fine - not so on a CNC. And that
               | one is quite inherent to the paradigm.
               | 
               | Other aspects could likely be simplified and automated to
               | a larger degree than today. In many areas solutions
               | exists, but are quite high budget - things like tool
               | changers, material loading and unloading.
        
               | phkahler wrote:
               | Machining can be simpler if you've got a couple precision
               | features that can be clamped to with hard fixturing. It's
               | all about positioning the workpiece accurately so the
               | fixed g-code program can do its thing.
        
           | PragmaticPulp wrote:
           | > I had always had in my mind that with CNC machines you just
           | stick the metal in the vise, load the program, hit start, and
           | you're good to go, but there's manual calibration, facing off
           | and the like that needs to be done before every run.
           | 
           | Much of it depends on the volume.
           | 
           | If you're building a million of something, the up-front cost
           | to automate every step of the way makes sense.
           | 
           | If you're only building 10 of something once every few
           | months, paying someone to do the manual operations 10 times
           | makes more sense than investing in all of the fixturing,
           | programming, and other tasks.
           | 
           | Really though, a lot of smaller machine shops have older CNC
           | machines that are paid for and otherwise sitting idle. Hiring
           | someone for $60/hr to do all the manual steps can keep that
           | machine profitable.
        
         | hef19898 wrote:
         | My first CNC experience was with a (C)NC machine from the 70s.
         | I loved it at times. It was really amazing to see the machine
         | shops being upgraded. The elvel of automation, already back in
         | 201/12 (last time I had any close contact with these things) is
         | amazing.
         | 
         | The concept of "Hauptzeitparllele Tatigkeit" (stuff operators
         | can do when the machine is doing its thing, one of the things
         | German just describes so well) stuck with me ever since.
        
       | samdung wrote:
       | Hand me the wrench ... oh wait.
        
       | OldHand2018 wrote:
       | > Those skills need to either be brought in or be taught and as
       | soon as a person has those skills we are back at having a skilled
       | person doing a large amount of unskilled work.
       | 
       | I'm completely in awe of this attitude. Are you located in the
       | USA? I know a bunch of people in small part manufacturing (mostly
       | metal and plastic) that are turning away work on a daily basis.
       | There is so much demand in the USA right now that any worker with
       | the skill to increase production rates is like gold.
        
         | musingsole wrote:
         | I think you misunderstand the authors point. There's unskilled
         | aspects of a job that seem like an allocation waste to have
         | skilled labor handle. But to properly account for some costly
         | errors and such, an unskilled worker has to be trained...making
         | them a skilled worker that should be able to better allocate
         | their time elsewhere than the unskilled tasks.
        
           | OldHand2018 wrote:
           | Based on the people I know, paying someone skilled wages to
           | do an unskilled job is more than worth it right now.
           | 
           | One of the shops I know of is making small little pieces of
           | aluminum in the central US and shipping them to Foxconn in
           | China for assembly into computers. As fast as they can make
           | them, which is constrained by the number of people they can
           | get on the floor. 2020 was their best year ever, by a wide
           | margin. Things are seriously crazy right now. If you're
           | wondering why, the answer is most likely tariffs. The more
           | American value in the product, the lower the tariff once you
           | import the computer. Nobody knows if Biden will continue
           | this.
        
       | mchusma wrote:
       | This is cool stuff. I don't know the state of the art here, but
       | it seems like making progress on remote factory operations would
       | dramatically speed up our ability to industrialize space.
        
       | paddy_m wrote:
       | If you're interested in machining, check out the Business of
       | Machining podcast. https://businessofmachining.libsyn.com/ Every
       | week John Saunders of NYCCNC talks about his business with John
       | Grimsmo of Grimsmo knives (they make $1000 pocket knives on cnc
       | machines). It is an excellent podcast about machining and
       | business.
        
       | xupybd wrote:
       | I work with large scale flat pack furniture manufacturing.
       | Unattended machining is possible and not uncommon. You have a
       | large tool changer on the CNC, an auto loader to get material on
       | the CNC, and then a stock warehousing robot to fetch the
       | material. You just talk to one of the large equipment
       | manufacturers and they'll sell you this sort of setup.
       | 
       | This seems like a strange problem to try and solve. As a former
       | software developer I see problems every day that AI or advanced
       | expert systems could solve I'd love to chat with these guys. If
       | they solved some of the problems with QC or Packing the industry
       | would be clawing at their doors to buy their products. Not to
       | mention the outdated state of most CAM / nesting packages.
        
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