[Southack]

In every industrial revolution, automation has beaten "cheap labor."

The printing press compared to hand-writing a book.

Look at the automated mill compared to hand-grinding corn. Then consider the cotton gin versus hand-picking out debris.

The assembly-line versus hand-building a car.

The Coke machine versus paying a guy to sell drinks on street corners.

The newspaper vending machine compared to paying a kid to sell papers on the sidewalk.

The PCB compared to hand-wiring a circuit board.

At each stage the quality improves, the speed increases, and the costs go down...yet at every instance the same Luddites lament that somehow unemployment will go up and that salaries and entire economies will go down.

It's a tiring pattern from that angle...yet exciting when correctly viewed as another instance of technology raising our living standards globally.

[Moonman62]

In every industrial revolution, automation has beaten "cheap labor."

That reminds me of my tag line.

[Cobra64]

Agreed.

It's amazing that so few people here haven't a clue.

Probably the same people who laughed at Honda when they sold their first cars here 35 years ago.

Ford and GM are selling off or closing product lines, and the Japs are laughing at us.

[SAJ]

Well said, mate! Whether Toyota's ideas will come into play in the short term or not, these ideas (or improved versions of same) **will** be put into practice relatively quickly, by some company or another.

Unless I am much mistaken, there is exactly no example in history of properly executed ''new'' technology and/or processes either being not implemented OR failing, over time.

There are, of course, some hundreds or more of examples of improper and/or inefficient and/or overhyped innovations failing badly.

When a ''new'' tool or process is well-designed to the task at hand, it will succeed, ultimately, or will be supplanted by a still better one.