Posted on 10/20/2016 6:03:05 PM PDT by cba123
Sewbo, a robotic sewing arm, is part of an automated system that can manufacture clothing without any human labor.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
Here is the link:
http://money.cnn.com/video/technology/2016/10/11/a-robotic-sewing-system-may-change-how-clothes-are-made.cnnmoney/index.html
That looks like the process would cost about $1500 per shirt!
They must’ve edited out the part where it sews in the ITCHY ‘Union Made’ label at the back of the collar...?
*SMIRK*
Do robots need clothes?
Henry Ford’s workers were paid enough to buy cars...
At least this will finally eliminate the evil capitalists from exploiting poor minority workers in the third world. And it will eliminate the money they earned, too.
The robots will do work third world workers won’t do.
Robots reporting the news, programed to be unbiased.
Based on the “quality” of the garment shown at the end of the video, those third world workers have nothing to worry about at the moment.
Actually, having one robot perform the entire process from end to end is inefficient. The assembly line process developed over 100+ years ago broke the fabrication task down into a series of discrete steps that could be performed in sequence as the item move along the assembly line. Each station along the line was specialized in equipment and training of personnel to rapidly and efficiently perform its step in the process.
This concept, if they stick to it, is actually akin to custom automobile or high end firearms manufacturing where a small team or even a single craftsman performs all the steps in a suboptimized fashion. There is a reason why “hand crafted” is more expensive. Now we can mark the item “hand crafted by robots.” Well, that will at least have novelty going for it.
It’s a step backwards.
How about a robot that patrols the Mission District, checking immigration status for those showing a preference for soccer and fluorscent Jesus figurines..?
That's a lot cheaper than bringing in illegals to sew your shirt.
The Japanese were heavily into robotics from after WWII to avoid having to import a foreign laboring class. Maybe this machine will help in that regard.
Well, it is the beginning and will likely bring manufacturing back to the US, though with far fewer workers.
Just think of all the textile and clothing jobs that are going to leave the U.S.
Oh, wait.
Do robots need clothes?
...
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
I used to work in the sewing industry and this robot is impressive.
The Japanese have had sewing robots but they are not real useful. The biggest problem has been the softness of the fabric which makes it very difficult to handle. They appear to have solved the stiffness problem.
The movie is shot in slow motion. All of the sewing machines I worked around ran at 18 to 25,000 rpm and this one is probably running in that range.
The most that humans will do is to supply the robot. This is the future of the sewing industry.
Yeah? Try getting your robot to replace a broken needle! There are a dozen things that can go wrong in sewing, like the thread breaking, the needle jamming stuck or getting bent, and material bunching up. Robots will have to get much more intelligent to fix problems with sewing machines. In the meantime, humans are necessary.
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