Whenever I see ISS dockings I wonder why the arm isn't computer controlled. There's no specific information on this page but I'm assuming it was a manual docking. Can anyone explain why the process is still manual?
Lets say you need a prototype ability tool and die maker machinist on staff to handle "things" during development. And you need a simple piece of threaded rod. You could blow a lot of extra time and money on getting a CNC programmer and the software and a numerically controlled lathe or machining center dropped in to make that boring simple little piece of threaded rod. Or you could say, "dude, I know this is beneath your skill, but you're just sitting there burning oxygen and it'll only take ten minutes for you to machine a piece of threaded rod, so ..."
If you have a tool that's designed to do anything, and the tool and op are just sitting there, even if you could automate a one-off, the overall system cost and productivity is higher if the op just does it by hand.
If you have a VERY active schedule, and maybe 3 simultaneously operating 24x7 arms all over the station with only one dude available to run all the arms and everything at 150% of designed thruput capacity etc, then it would make economic sense to automate this task so the arm op can work on something more human oriented, but ...