The world's top three shipbuilding firms are South Korean – Daewoo, Hyundai Heavy Industries and Samsung Heavy Industries – and their shipyards are already renowned for their level of automation. In a study of the firms' facilities in 2012, US Navy personnel found that five out of the six yards they visited used robots in some capacity. At one shipyard, robots did 68 per cent of all welding as well as carrying out jobs from cutting and grinding steel to polishing freshly assembled hulls, with minimal human oversight. [my underlines]Welding jobs cut by 68%. Minimal human oversight. Soon coming to an [former] employer near you. Don't worry though. You can go back to school, at a nominal cost and train for one of those jobs "overseeing" the machines or go into another field that will soon suffer the same fate. Enjoy.
(17 years of informed commentary)
Wednesday, August 06, 2014
Technology and Human Labour Replacement
Continuing in our observations in the coming displacement of workers, particularly men, by automated systems of various types. Here's a report from New Scientist on exoskeletons which had an interesting tidbit:
