Ken Goldberg and Vijay Kumar: reinventing US manufacturing
Does "Made in the USA" have a future? According to UC Berkeley robotics pioneer Ken Goldberg and mechanical engineering professor Vijay Kumar of the University of Pennsylvania, US manufacturing could be revived with a rigorous "science of cost-effective, resource-efficient manufacturing." They published their riff as an editorial in today's San Jose Mercury News. From the essay:
Just as the method to add two numbers together doesn't depend on what kind of pencil you use, manufacturing abstractions can be wholly independent of the product one is making or the assembly line systems used to assemble it. Another precedent is the Turing Machine, an elegant abstract model invented by Alan Turing in the 1930s, which established the mathematical and scientific foundations for our now-successful high-tech industries. Without Turing's theoretical work, the system that typeset this line wouldn't exist.Link
What's needed today is an analogy to the Turing Machine for design, automation and manufacturing.
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We don't need a new Turing Machine for design, automation and manufacturing; just like we don't need one Turing Machine for Word Processing and another for Spreadsheets. This is a very weak analogy.
We don't need a breakthrough in the automation of design. We need a management culture that values design and quality, and doesn't rely so heavily on quality-independent marketing.
The problem that I have with this premise is that it will always be cheaper to outsource anything you can to a country where the laborers charge $.50 cents a day and rent is $1.00 a month.
Another word for "Turing machine for design" is automation. It has already taken place, and those factories that had it are closed down and moved overseas, by companies that are located in carribean/UK tax havens. Just leaving the CEOs in the US that rake the millions in over the sweat of others. I call it corporate immorality sponsored by corrupt politicians. Therefore a more appropriate word for "Turing machine for design" would be "campaign finance reform."
Don't we know this already? What am I missing here?
Um, what we really need is something like international labor agreements and environmental agreements to go along with trade treaties.
Cost of labor is the only reason people offshore their manufacturing. You can hire people in India or China for what, 10% of what that employee would cost in the US? 5%?
We all accept that 'dumping' is unfair, and ought to be illegal, i.e. I can't come into a marketplace, sell goods at a loss, and drive all other competitors out of business.
So what we've done with offshore manufacturing is institutionalize a system that isn't too far from the definition of dumping.
BigPaul
I don't at all accept as a general premise that 'dumping' is unfair, nor that it should be illegal. This is not nearly as settled a point of social, economic, or political policy which you seem to think it to be.
But aside from that, you seem to be saying that hiring someone to do work for less money than someone in the US wants for that same work is akin to dumping, and so is unfair and should be illegal.
I argue the opposite. Paying someone more strictly because they are in America is racist, anti environment, anti-human, and immoral.
Here's a recent blog entry in which I propose minimizing sub-components, and manufacturing stages, in order to make greener, more robust product.
Synopsis: Don't make a bicycle out of tubes that have to be molded, cut, welded, and milled.
Instead, use a single machine. Enter CAD model. Enter molten metal. Push button. Et voila -- a single high-precision bicycle frame!
@Chemical Orphan: I was able to read it fine.
@Stephen: Not going to happen. What they're really talking about ultimately is the elimination of manufacturing as a separate industry period. It all gets turned over to personal assemblers for small things or large-scale ones for something as large as a 787.
So, not only no more Detroit, but no more Shenzhen either. It's not just the US that is done with mass manufacturing, it will be the whole planet.
I only go to Costco because they gets stuff I need by the pallet-load from other place that make it. When I can make my own widget or my own hammer or bath towel, I don't need to go there anymore.
@DJ Perl: I've actually been saying that for a couple years now.
Why are we so worried about the end of manufacturing in America when we are manufacturing more now than at any other point in history. We just use a capital intensive process as apposed to labor intensive process. Oh, that's right, the story of outsourcing is sensational no matter how small it is in reality.
@dillo: original link went to the san jose mercury site, the link was later changed to berkeley.edu