[HN Gopher] Welding and the automation frontier ___________________________________________________________________ Welding and the automation frontier Author : shaldengeki Score : 33 points Date : 2023-11-22 17:32 UTC (5 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.construction-physics.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.construction-physics.com) | howmayiannoyyou wrote: | Author is using questionable metrics: | | - Number of welders declined as US manufacturing has declined in | the US. Manufacturing that remains utilized robotic welding | extensively. You can be sure the demand for welders in China has | been the inverse of the United States. | | - Welding use in automotive declined as US manufacturing started | using more plastics, metal foams, fasteners & automated spot | welders in their operations. It also declined as casting & powder | technology advanced, and it will decline further as more car | makers adopt mega-castings. | | - He cites ship building, but does so somewhat incorrectly. | Welding is still widely used in ship building, but there are few | ship builders left in the US. | | To the larger point, yes, of course AI will displace welders, but | its very unlikely to do so for repairs, small runs and | specialized applications. Its actually a well paying and in- | demand skill, especially if combined with other mechanical | skilsets. | datadrivenangel wrote: | Not to mention advanced stamping! Modern automotive stamping | (turning sheet metal into complicated structural parts) is an | amazing technology that reduces the number of welds required. | MikeAmelung wrote: | The tagline of the site is "Why buildings are built the way | they are." | | And the author completely fails to mention the welding that | goes into buildings... | Oarch wrote: | It started off quite construction focused, but it's since | veered far off that course | Arainach wrote: | Your points are addressed in the article. It specifically looks | at the number of welding jobs in car manufacturing (still done | here) over time. | datadrivenangel wrote: | " A human welder is less productive, but remains more flexible | than a robot, and evidently enough welding tasks require that | sort of flexibility that much welding in the US is still done | manually. Interestingly, the pitch for a lot of robotic welding | systems is often more focused on the difficulty of finding | skilled welders, rather than on the potential cost savings of a | welding robot." | | Obligatory reference to the XKCD automation time savings matrix. | Most tasks in construction and repair and other low-volume medium | dollar activities aren't worth automating because you only do | them a few times, and the cost of setting up the automation to | work correctly would be significantly more expensive. The value | of automation in these domains in quality, which is why you also | see it in low-volume high-cost domains like aerospace. If you're | going to go to the cost of x-raying every weld anyways, having a | welder set up the welding bot to do the actual work makes a lot | of sense given the cost of rework. | Closi wrote: | As an additional note - the cost of the robot is only part of | the cost. | | You have to bring the parts to be welded together to start with | (i.e. some sort of conveyor system - decent conveyor is like | $4-5k per meter) and the cost quoted there also doesn't include | integration, programming, maintenance, project management, M&E, | and support. | | As soon as the payback is compelling companies will put it in - | but I suspect the quoted $100k here actually ends up being more | like $300k-$500k by the time it's installed and all costs are | pushed in. Then there is probably a $30-50k maintenance | contract that sits on top of it. | dieselgate wrote: | I like seeing welding posts on HN and cool they come up few times | a months. | | The GE chain making machine is pretty interesting and can't | really imagine doing it by hand otherwise (at scale). Saw a hand | welded chain segment the other day on a bike displayed at a shop | - kind of used as a quicklink but more permanent. It was slightly | puzzling to see how they went about it but whatever. | | Welding and automation is something that kind of compounds on | itself - for example comparing wirefeed/mig to stick. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-11-22 23:00 UTC)