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Robot sewing machines could make 'made in China' obsolete

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Re: Robot sewing machines could make 'made in China' obsolete

#41

Post by adventureful »

ern wrote: post #38
adventureful wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's correct at all. It will help a lot, specifically because it's not a zero sum game of just swapping Chinese based manufactured goods out for robot based goods. The US would stop sending that capital to China (a huge wealth drain), which is helping build out their economy. The US would gain wealth and capital incentives for further robotic development. The US would gain jobs around robotics in all…

Workers would be needed to create buildings, build roads and transmission lines, repair robots, scrap robots, replace robots, R&D robot tech, provide materials, and so on. It would cultivate a huge ecosystem. Wouldn't robots eventually move into those fields as well?

Are we talking 100 years out? Because you'll still need engineers to decide where to put a building, what it should look like based on financial restrictions (a robot reading your bank account to decide how much building you can afford?) and future demand projections.

The robots aren't doing the financial decision making in the next 35 to 50 years. Assisted analysis (software), sure.

A robot isn't going to understand civil codes when it comes to laying down power lines (humans barely understand the civil codes). A human would be required to follow such guidelines and then could perhaps instruct a robot toward the actual labor.

Maybe one day in a very far off future civil laws will be understood by robots, but I'm betting that's not going to be very high on the list of things to get around to automating. It would also likely require extremely advanced AI, because the robot might have to negotiate civil code conflicts based on decisions made (and this just seems far beyond the next few decades). Who takes responsibility for a robot failing to navigate zoning laws properly?

Re: Robot sewing machines could make 'made in China' obsolete

#42

Post by icebraining »

adventureful wrote: post #12
warmwaffles wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no winning scenario for China from robotic manufacturing. This is a good point. Although I would argue that yes America would reacquire the garment industry some what, however the parts that make the machine up will still be manufactured by overseas competitors. I think they are on the right track but the problem still lies in manufacturing chips and metal pieces cost substantially less overseas.

I agree. It's not a scenario in which the US is magically going to re-dominate 55% of global manufacturing like it's 1964 all over again. But it is plausible the US can retake a portion of manufacturing.

Uh, the US has increased their manufacturing output since 1980 by 218%, and it's still head-to-head with China: http://business.time.com/2011/03/10/can-china-compete-with-a...

Re: Robot sewing machines could make 'made in China' obsolete

#43

Post by icebraining »

adrianN wrote: post #35
MarkMc wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? I usually love technological progress, but in this case it would mean many (millions?) of desperately poor people losing their jobs. I'm hoping this comes much later.

And while we're at it, let's also destroy all mechanical looms?

I think robots are great, but I'd prefer if China had time to transition to an economy less dependent on exports, as they are trying to do.

Re: Robot sewing machines could make 'made in China' obsolete

#44

Post by mrgrieves »

Figs wrote: post #30
mrgrieves wrote: post #18

> ...robots could return manufacturing of smartphones, computers and TVs to U.S. shores China will rule electronics for the foreseeable future. Even if its advantage in labor costs were eliminated, China's parts ecosystem, lax recycling regulations, and (increasingly exclusive) access to rare earth metals will keep it on top for some time to come. Their manufacturing technology is also arguably the most advanced in t…

"(increasingly exclusive) access to rare earth metals" Is that after accounting for the reopening of rare-earth mines in California and other locations? E.g: http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/05/rare-earth-mining-ris...

Thanks for that link; the article was solid.

It's the scale of China's monopoly on rare earth metals which scares me. I'm -very- happy that mines are re-opening in other countries, and I hope that they're around long enough that home-grown manufacturers become reliable customers.

But they simply won't have enough mines and production capacity to secure the supply. Molycorp is small enough that China can flood the market with cheap rare-earth metals just long enough to mess up their $753 MM investment in that mine and knock them out of business again. This has happened before:

http://www.ndu.edu/press/chinas-ace-in-the-hole.html "The Mountain Pass rare earth mine in California, owned by Molycorp Minerals, was once the largest rare earth supplier in the world. Through the 1990s, however, China's exports of rare earth elements grew, causing prices worldwide to plunge. This undercut business for Molycorp and other producers around the world, and eventually either drove them out of business or significantly reduced production efforts."

Of course Chinese manufacturing temporarily loses that "access to rare earth metals" advantage if mines ramp up exports again, but if doing so can cripple foreign mining operations it may be strategically worthwhile in the long term.

Re: Robot sewing machines could make 'made in China' obsolete

#45

Post by adventureful »

mulation wrote: post #7

Those machines will soon be assembled or copycatted in China.

Let's say that's the case.

To what end? Selling them to the West and putting their own garment makers out of business?

Or using them domestically to put their own garment makers out of work? Do their garment makers then build robots? Does the math equal out? (I have no clue)

The labor dislocation would be extreme initially either way, and would be resisted. Take China's agriculture for example, they intentionally hold down productivity gains in agriculture to keep enough work available for the huge agriculture worker population and limit labor disruption.

It wouldn't take very long to severely reduce garment making in China and Vietnam once robotics gained a foot hold. The country with the least to lose in the robotic shift, that is highly capable of making that shift, would win very quickly.

Re: Robot sewing machines could make 'made in China' obsolete

#46

Post by adventureful »

Something that a shift to robotic manufacturing plays to is the theory of inflection points in systems. In this case, the inflection points are very very long markers in time.

1) You start at highly domestic manufacturing for most goods (mostly the case right up until the mid 19th to 20th century).

2) Global outsourcing brings huge efficiency gains through specialization and optimizations with regulation and labor costs.

3) The inflection swings back to domestic manufacturing of most goods. If the US could automate the sewing of its clothing, why not most every other country? There's no reason Italy couldn't buy enough materials to then sew all of its own clothing domestically; ditto Spain or Belgium or whomever.

The swing back also brings all sorts of benefits for security when it comes to being less dependent on other nations for your basic goods. If you could make your own clothing at a cost parity with outsourcing it to China, why wouldn't you do so? And even more important than a cost parity, is a net value parity: the capital kept domestically, the jobs kept or created domestically thrown into the value calculation.

Re: Robot sewing machines could make 'made in China' obsolete

#47

Post by seivan »

MarkMc wrote: post #22
seivan wrote: post #16

Lets hope this comes soon.

Really? I usually love technological progress, but in this case it would mean many (millions?) of desperately poor people losing their jobs. I'm hoping this comes much later.

That's how revolution is born. I really wish for this. And for the poor, well they can do as the french did hounded of years ago. History repeats itself for the Chinese, the greedy didn't learn or thought themselves to be invincible. http://brontecapital.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/macroeconomics-o...

I really wish for this.

Re: Robot sewing machines could make 'made in China' obsolete

#49

Post by adventureful »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #39
adventureful wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China hasn't demonstrated an ability to do widespread high quality manufacturing. Countries like Germany run circles around China on that front. It's just as likely that a nation like Sweden or Germany might dominate building the robots that go in the manufacturing plants, rather than China.

> It's just as likely that a nation like Sweden or Germany might dominate building the robots that go in the manufacturing plants I vaguely recall reading that the country that has had the foresight to stay at the top of the chain - making the tools that make the tools that make the goods - is Japan. I can't find a link right now, sorry.

You're right, they've been there from day one when it comes to robot manufacturing.

"The Japanese company Kawasaki Robotics started the commercial production of industrial robots over 40 years ago. Approximately 700,000 industrial robots were used all over the world in 1995, of which 500,000 operated in Japan"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_robot#History_of_ind...

Re: Robot sewing machines could make 'made in China' obsolete

#50

Post by Rhino55 »

lispm wrote: post #31

How so? The article is poorly researched. As if the strategy of automation hasn't been tried in various areas to get back or keep jobs. In some areas this works, in others it hasn't. It also has been tried in this industry. China is also not even the cheapest place. Clothing now comes from Vietnam, Philippines and other asian countries. I'm also not sure making manual labor in that area obsolete is actually useful. S…

Economics in One Lesson.

Edit: this is a book, and the book explains the fallacy of the above comment

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