
I am a roboticist in a cheese factory - fern12
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/i-am-a-roboticist-in-a-cheese-factory/
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froindt
I come from an Industrial Engineering background and I really liked this quick
overview of the job. The cost of robotic arms has dropped considerably in the
last ~10 years. Glancing through Ebay quick, you can get tons of robotic arm
models for less than $20,000. I anticipate many more processes getting
automated in the next couple years especially with the rapid pace of computer
vision improvements we're seeing. Like a lot of things, running a factory can
look and sound easy until you get to actually doing it. Some things that can
really trip up a factory:

* Improper product from upstream processes (wrong dimensions, doesn't assemble, wrong physical properties, etc).

* Unplanned downtime.

* Being behind on production goals (meaning they won't stop the machine for you to install and test your new widget that might fix everything).

* Management turning down many very useful OEM upgrades on a cost basis.

* Imbalanced production rates. The bottleneck of the factory should be the primary focus for improvements.

And for a fun fact: lubricant used in food production equipment must be safe
for humans. For this reason, vegetable oil and similar products are often
used.

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TheSpiceIsLife
Yep! I work in the steel construction industry. Damn near every day, typically
mid to late afternoon, an order comes from on high: "this has to be on the
truck at 6am tomorrow", but you also have to continue to meet the existing
deadlines. Then you lose an hour of production because a machine needs
maintenance or breaks down.

This is why we work 54hr weeks. All the time.

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singularity2001
I'm sorry you work in a third world country. Advanced societies have working
limits of 35 to 40 hours per week.

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stevehiehn
Im not sure which advanced society you are refering to. But i think you mean
40hrs of mandatory work. I worked at a chainsaw factory ~15yrs ago and in
Canada & the managers would put huge amounts of pressure on the workers to do
constant overtime. When you are desperate for job security being seen as the
worker who won't go the extra mile does not feel optional.

~~~
mschuster91
> Im not sure which advanced society you are refering to. But i think you mean
> 40hrs of mandatory work

Germany or any other civilized country with such things as laborer protection
laws. But in a society with at-will employment like the US I wouldn't expect
any kind of protection, so...

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darklajid
Yeah.. No.

Having worked for a German company where 7-midnight shifts were a regular
thing for month (project team of five): Sure. That's illegal. I know that,
knew that then. But maybe you just want to do your job and get over with it.
Then there's the fucked up problem between coworkers. Five people. If one says
"Enough! I go home now after 12 hours!" then four are "Erm... why do you leave
us to finish the tasks?".

Germany (can't comment on other so-called civilized countries) is no help here
if the employees feel that they're in a bind.

~~~
mschuster91
> Germany (can't comment on other so-called civilized countries) is no help
> here if the employees feel that they're in a bind.

Yes, but these examples are _rare_ and when you document your working time
carefully you can get quite a load of money by going via the court system. In
the US, they're widespread and no way for recourse.

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ukulele
This may be a dumb question, but at what point does a "machine" become a
"robot"?

~~~
mandor
My definition: there is no clear limit, but there is a spectrum of
‘roboticity’ that corresponds to the spectrum of ‘versatility’. The more
versatile a machine is, the more a robot it is.

For instance, a blender is not versatile. But a cooking robot can do more
things (it blends, but also cooks, mixes, etc.). This is why the cooking robot
is more a robot than a blender.

This is similar in industry. You have specialized machines, which can do a
single thing. Industrial robots are more versatile because we can program them
to achieve different task (e.g. when there is a new model of car). The
ultimate robot would be as versatile as a human. This kind of humanoid would
have the highest level of ‘roboticity’.

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andrew3726
Why would human versatility define the upper limit?

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pryelluw
Great question. I think it stems from the origin of robotics itself. The
desire to build a machine that is "alive" and get it to obey at all our
commands. Sometimes I think that robots are slaves 2.0, and as such, they will
have human traits.

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Theodores
I worked in a cheese factory and I am familiar with all the tasks here, except
we also churned the whey to get very salty butter which went into other
products.

We used pallets and when you would have a small tower built on these things
you would have to do the clingfilm wrap to hold it all together. This was not
a big process, it would take a couple of minutes to do and a forklift would
need to access the pallet to take it away as soon as this was done.

In this factory we made cheese on a truly industrial scale, however, the
thought of getting a robot to do the clingfilm wrap would be anything but the
first thing on the mind of the boss. So this cheese factory must be gigantic,
up there with the gigafactory...

So is this any good, this string cheese in packs from this vast industrial
operation? Is there some conclusion to this where America ends up with just
one mega-dairy factory somewhere in the Mid-West with nobody else able to
compete against the robots? For things like clingfilm wrapping to be too hard
for humans to do?

I would like to see a different approach, a highly robotised but small scale
cheese factory, on the back of a lorry. Something that can be taken to the
farm so that we can have 'single farm' cheeses.

~~~
lioeters
On this last point, I think the trend of small(er) scale fabrication at lower
cost will eventually enable such micro-factories.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fab_lab](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fab_lab)

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madengr
I had a tour of an incandescent light bulb factory in the 90’s. It was
interesting seeing machines that were possibly 100 years old retrofitted with
the latest programmable controllers.

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andrewl
This is a very accessible intro. And I was fascinated by the progression of
her interests and education.

One note: the link to her Instagram page at the bottom of the article is
broken (there's an unneeded = at the end). The correct URL is:

[https://www.instagram.com/theladymachinist/](https://www.instagram.com/theladymachinist/)

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omilu
Anyone have recommendations for an online mechatronics course/certification?

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criddell
Not online, but I think a lot of community colleges will have programs in
automation and PLCs.

