Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

BMW Group to deploy humanoid robots in production in Germany for the first time

press.bmwgroup.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 275 posts

Re: BMW Group to deploy humanoid robots in production in Germany for the first time

#141

Post by 0x000xca0xfe »

pcurve wrote: post #100
wenc wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work for the US side of a German multinational (one of the largest in the world) and discovered the same thing when it came to software. The German side always had slick presentations (they always had good visual marketing) and impressive claims, but whenever I tried to work with their products, I always found the claims overstated and that they hadn't really executed deeply. This despite my German counterp…

"if you've ever driven a German car, you'll realize that the car was built for engineers and not for end users " cracks me up. I once leased a BMW for 3 years. By the time I returned the car, I still didn't what all the cryptic buttons for HVAC and other controls. They just refused to follow established automotive ergonomic conventions. Anyway, my father used to do business with Germans for a long time. He had many i…

     I don't know if it's sheer stubbornness or they're just wired differently.
As a German I believe it's more about demographics nowadays. The country and all large companies are run by older people who only saw rising prosperity their entire life. They all have settled in a comfortable place and do not seriously care about the future anymore. They just want to keep the system running until retirement.

There is no long-term strategic thinking anymore, only feel-good policies and short-term cash burning for their respective clientele.

As a young person it infuriates me but there is nothing we can do.

Re: BMW Group to deploy humanoid robots in production in Germany for the first time

#143

Post by servo_sausage »

analog31 wrote: post #84
wenc wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work for the US side of a German multinational (one of the largest in the world) and discovered the same thing when it came to software. The German side always had slick presentations (they always had good visual marketing) and impressive claims, but whenever I tried to work with their products, I always found the claims overstated and that they hadn't really executed deeply. This despite my German counterp…

I wonder if anybody's manufacturing was great before the Japanese quality revolution. It took Germany longer than the US to adopt modern quality control. Granted, Germany did a lot of it, for instance their chemical industries were staggering. I've formed the impression that every country's engineering and design cultures are essentially aesthetics.

History of manafacturing philosophy is a pretty interesting lens;

I once had the chance to chatt with an old German colleague about the change in mentality over multiple decades. One thing he highlighted was the change from "lower error rate equals less waste, and higher final sale price" to "customer complaints or defect rates should be above a threshold, otherwise we are investing too much in the process control".

Particularly due to the desire to derisk the process; design by collaboration with the end user, and contracts with quality requirements, rather than the design being owned by the manufacturer.

Re: BMW Group to deploy humanoid robots in production in Germany for the first time

#144

Post by bob1029 »

aix1 wrote: post #134
bob1029 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've learned my lesson about German engineering after buying one of their vacuum cleaners. The ergonomics of the machine seem bad on purpose.

I have a Metabo vacuum (ASA 30 H PC) and absolutely love it. What's bad about the ergonomics of yours?

I have a Sebo. The primary thing I dislike is the weight. You'd think something this heavy would have some kind of performance advantage, but it doesn't. I've seen battery powered shit from Walmart suck harder than this machine does.

Re: BMW Group to deploy humanoid robots in production in Germany for the first time

#145

Post by omega3 »

wenc wrote: post #63
Maxion wrote: post #23

Whenever I hear german companies mention digitalisation, I get reminded that they still use pen and pencil in production environments to log data, pass those sheets to secreteries who enter the data into legacy systems so data analysts can enter it into another system that then has an integration with SAP. Data from SAP then flows onwards to some buzzword filled Azure product that costs a few million a month from whi…

I used to work for the US side of a German multinational (one of the largest in the world) and discovered the same thing when it came to software. The German side always had slick presentations (they always had good visual marketing) and impressive claims, but whenever I tried to work with their products, I always found the claims overstated and that they hadn't really executed deeply. This despite my German counterp…

> if you've ever driven a German car, you'll realize that the car was built for engineers and not for end users

Perhaps they were built for engineers designing the car not for the actual people repairing or maintaining them - they are notorious for requiring a cascade of disassembly for repairs of simple components, require specialist tools, overengineering of components etc.

Re: BMW Group to deploy humanoid robots in production in Germany for the first time

#146

Post by bikesharing »

wenc wrote: post #63
Maxion wrote: post #23

Whenever I hear german companies mention digitalisation, I get reminded that they still use pen and pencil in production environments to log data, pass those sheets to secreteries who enter the data into legacy systems so data analysts can enter it into another system that then has an integration with SAP. Data from SAP then flows onwards to some buzzword filled Azure product that costs a few million a month from whi…

I used to work for the US side of a German multinational (one of the largest in the world) and discovered the same thing when it came to software. The German side always had slick presentations (they always had good visual marketing) and impressive claims, but whenever I tried to work with their products, I always found the claims overstated and that they hadn't really executed deeply. This despite my German counterp…

[dead]

Re: BMW Group to deploy humanoid robots in production in Germany for the first time

#147

Post by servo_sausage »

umpalumpaaa wrote: post #117
hnburnsy wrote: post #88

A union in Germany is fighting Tesla over this same thing... >. In 2026, Giga Berlin is the pilot site for the "Optimus" Gen-3 integration—humanoid robots performing repetitive tasks in the battery pack assembly area. IG Metall views this not as progress, but as a threat to job security. https://www.teslaacessories.com/blogs/news/the-giga-berlin-s...

I always found German unions pretty good. I mean the union is correct in this case. Robots will replace jobs. A union’s job is to make sure there are jobs for people in the company they are already in. Usually unions would speak the truth (“robots = jobs go away”) but pair this with some suggestions: eg trying to upskill the affected worker so that they can be moved to a different department). While I was working in…

Fundamentally the union should be getting the workers a fair deal for their labour (conditions and wages); once the union starts interfering with the technical aspects or blocking labour saving investment it quickly sours the whole arrangement.

Re: BMW Group to deploy humanoid robots in production in Germany for the first time

#148

Post by notTooFarGone »

vjvjvjvjghv wrote: post #74
wenc wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work for the US side of a German multinational (one of the largest in the world) and discovered the same thing when it came to software. The German side always had slick presentations (they always had good visual marketing) and impressive claims, but whenever I tried to work with their products, I always found the claims overstated and that they hadn't really executed deeply. This despite my German counterp…

I think Germany got infected by the shareholder value and privatization virus but doesn't really understand it.

Working for german medium-sized companies:

It's really that the upper management does not appreciate change over departments if it's not their idea.

There is always the mentality that "why fix it if it works" where you actually have to wait for people to go to their pension to really grab a process and drive change.

You then get partially digitalized processes where digital native departments are concerned but they always have to solve the problem of interacting with a bunch of legacy systems and workflows, which in itself is so much harder and more inefficient.

Re: BMW Group to deploy humanoid robots in production in Germany for the first time

#149

Post by ReptileMan »

mtct88 wrote: post #140

I still don’t understand how this can be considered cheaper or more productive than using a human. I’m all for automation in industry, but the "human simulation" approach (where a robot mimics a human on a production line instead of using a process optimized for machine operation) just doesn’t make sense to me.

A cheap humanoid robots will do wonders to alleviate the need for migration. And they can be plugged anywhere you have existing humans working.

Re: BMW Group to deploy humanoid robots in production in Germany for the first time

#150

Post by marceldegraaf »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #138
bob1029 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've learned my lesson about German engineering after buying one of their vacuum cleaners. The ergonomics of the machine seem bad on purpose.

Anecdotally, I disagree. The ergonomics on my Miele are very good. It is clear that attention was paid to many details of using it.

I recently replaced the shock dampers on our Miele washing machine (~10 years old) and I was amazed how well designed and ergonomic the inside of the machine is.

Parts are very easy to get at, all screws are Torx of identical size, and there's one very obvious way to take the machine apart and put it back together again. Made the replacement a breeze.

Post reply on HN