
Mercedes Boots Robots from the Production Line - monort
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-25/why-mercedes-is-halting-robots-reign-on-the-production-line
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FreedomToCreate
The rapid updating of car models is either going to be a success or blow up in
the car manufacturers face. The sales of cars has been high over the past few
years, but economically sustaining car sales year and adding growth year of
year is not feasible with the current model of purchasing and holding onto a
car as a long term liable asset. Newer business models will be needed to make
this shift for newer model sales on a smaller time frame. I see a big push for
leasing coming.

~~~
alexhawdon
This is already happening, at least in the UK. I don't have the numbers but
leasing is being pushed heavily by advertisers and is becoming the normal way
for people to get hold of a new car who mightn't otherwise.

~~~
bsder
> I don't have the numbers but leasing is being pushed heavily by advertisers
> and is becoming the normal way for people to get hold of a new car who
> mightn't otherwise.

At least in the US, the problem is that if you total the car during your
lease, you owe the remaining value of the car. That makes leasing an
absolutely _horrible_ decision in the US--all the downside of buying a car
with none of the upside.

How is the UK dealing with that?

~~~
pc86
What state are you in?

Gap insurance has been a _requirement_ for every lease contract I've ever
signed. Which means that the difference is paid by insurance.

And no, leasing is sometimes an excellent decision, let's not be silly.

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encoderer
On the Mercedes AMG performance line, a single master craftsman builds the
engine by himself. His signature is on the engine block. Mercedes doing
something like this is interesting but they are a niche, luxury manufacturer
(though they are the largest luxury brand at least in the us and maybe world
wide). A change like this at Toyota would be more interesting to me.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
I don't think I'd use the phrase "master craftsman" unless my paycheck came
from their marketing dept.

Being able to do a high quality, consistent job assembling engine after engine
is not a huge feat, it just takes a lot of attention to detail. Being able to
spec out and effectively execute a particular engine build is on a whole
different level and the latter is what I'd be more inclined to call a
"craftsman"

The former doesn't need to care (but they likely do since anyone with that job
probably does automotive stuff as a hobby) about things like how camshaft
specs, rod length, piston velocity, intake design and about a million other
variables interact with each other to affect performance of the whole system.
The latter needs to be intimately familiar with them while also being able to
do the job of the former.

To put it in terms more people on HN will understand, the guy assembling the
engine is like the user of some backed software stack. Sure they might write
some scripts that interact with parts of the stack but they're nowhere near as
well versed in how does what it does and why it does things the way it does
when compared to the engineer who designed and built the stack.

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arrrg
„Meister“ (literally “master” in English) is just the certificate you get
after finishing some vocational trainings in Germany (includes theory and
practice).

Vocational training is still somewhat widespread in Germany (for jobs like
mechanics, hairdressers, even sys admins, some more rote programming jobs, …)
also as an alternative to going to university.

Now, I’m not sure whether typical assembly line workers have that kind of
education (probably not? but I’m not sure), so having someone with this kind
of education assemble your engine for you might be a step up, but I also think
there is a mismatch going on here between what the English words seem to imply
and what the German word means.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
I assume it's something like being a "master mechanic" but it seems like a
fishy marketing move to call them "craftsmen" so they can say "master
craftsmen" when they basically mean "certified technicians."

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Justsignedup
> We’re saving money and safeguarding our future by making a good PR move

FTFY.

Seriously though, the only reason is because they are customizing and non-
intelligent robots are not good at making variations.

This doesn't solve the fundamental problem coming of robots who _can_ handle
variation.

And as encoderer noted, this is a niche luxury market.

~~~
Justsignedup
Exactly right. But they are selling it like some miracle anti-technology
movement.

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anentropic
>“The variety is too much to take on for the machines,” said Schaefer, who’s
pushing to reduce the hours needed to produce a car to 30 from 61 in 2005.
“They can’t work with all the different options and keep pace with changes.”

it sounds like they just have bad software

it's not like there are random variations or an uncontrolled environment.

in the end there's still only a finite menu of options. don't they just need
better software for combining the options?

like... it costs more to program the routines than to train and employ people
to do the job?

~~~
bryanlarsen
> it costs more to program the routines than to train and employ people to do
> the job?

Exactly. The S-Class is not exactly a high volume vehicle, and it has a huge
number of options. Given the low number of vehicles and the combinatorial
explosion of different option combinations, it's quite possible that a custom
S-Class is unique.

~~~
pc86
Ford sold more Focus models in June 2015 than Mercedes sold S-Class models in
the entire year.[0, 1]

[0] [http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2011/01/mercedes-benz-s-
class-s...](http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2011/01/mercedes-benz-s-class-sales-
figures.html)

[1] [http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2011/01/ford-focus-sales-
figure...](http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2011/01/ford-focus-sales-figures.html)

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a_thro_away
...Marketer-speak meaning it erodes the "je ne sais quoi", that which is
undefinable, about very expensive, often hand-made, goods. That is the real
reason - how can you persuade big spenders that something is unique and
valuable if it came from a factory, a robot? even if said quality may be
demonstrably superior? (edit:said inferior).

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thomasedwards
A cheaper way of solving this problem would to be to make the cars less
complicated. Just offer colour variants and give every option included in the
base model. Economies of scale will create your profits.

~~~
taneq
People who buy custom spec'd Mercedes don't want cars that base-model plebs
can afford. The options aren't there to increase the feature set, they're
there to make the buyers feel special.

~~~
pc86
No they're not. They are there because someone in Minnesota will almost
certainly spend $500 on heated seats and thank you for the privilege while
someone in Miami won't.

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tedchs
Article seems to speak out both sides of its mouth, that robots are going away
for Mercedes, and also that tons of small robots are being added. Anybody else
get that takeaway?

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thehoff
My takeaway:

They are removing robots that are cordoned off into areas to keep workers
safe. These robots are not very good at customizing/changing quickly.

What they are being replaced with is people and much smaller robots that work
side-by-side with those people. Assisting more than trying to do it all.

~~~
melling
Sounds like a business opportunity to build better robots.

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sschueller
The large Robot manufactures such as ABB are already working on such
solutions:
[http://new.abb.com/products/robotics/yumi](http://new.abb.com/products/robotics/yumi)

~~~
ju-st
The real billion dollar idea is robots which don't need engineers to instruct
them. These robots will simply learn from humans who literally show them e.g.
how to pick parts from a conveyor and put them in wire mesh crates.

~~~
dbcurtis
That is what Rod Brooks is pushing with Rethink. We'll see if it works.

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lsv1
I'm curious to know if the workers replacing the robots will be German.

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crispyambulance
ohh... "boot" as in "remove"

~~~
taneq
> CHAIN "ROBOTS" _hits 'return' key_

