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according
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17
ortion,
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BRENDAN HOFFMAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
After Tobac
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New
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Industry
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LIANNE MILTON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Argentines Need Therapy? Pull Up a Couch
py? Pull Up a Couch
After
After T
Their
Thei
United States fell from 40 percent of the work
for robots to do.”
force to about 2 percent today. The analogy is
Beyond the technical challenges lies resisnot only to the industrialization of agriculture
tance from unionized workers and communibut also to the electrification of manufacturing
ties worried about jobs. The ascension of robots
in the past century, Mr. McAfee argues.
may mean fewer jobs are created in this coun8-19,A,017,Bs-4C,E2
Nxxx,2012-08-19,A,017,Bs-4C,E2
Nxxx,2012-08-19,A,017,Bs-4C,E2
“At what point does the chain saw replace try, even though rising labor and transportation
A,017,Bs-4C,E2
Paul Bunyan?” asked Mike Dennison, an execucosts in Asia and fears of intellectual property
tive at Flextronics, a manufacturer of consumer theft are now bringing some work back to the
electronics
productsSUNDAY,
that
is based
in Silicon
West.
NEW YORK
TIMES NATIONAL
AUGUST
2012ValØN
17 AUG
THE
NEW YORK
TIMES
THE NEW
YORK19,
TIMES
AUGUST
19, 2012
NATIONAL SUNDAY,
NATIONAL SUNDAY,
ley
and
is
increasingly
automating
assembly
Take
the
cavernous
solar-panel
factory
run
ØN
17
RK TIMES NATIONAL SUNDAY, AUGUST
19, 2012
ØN
17
work. “There’s always a price point, and we’re by Flextronics in Milpitas, south of San Franvery close to that point.”
cisco. A large banner proudly proclaims “BringBut Bran Ferren, a veteran roboticist and ing Jobs & Manufacturing Back to California!”
industrial product designer at Applied Minds in (Right now China makes a large share of the soGlendale, Calif., argues that there are still steep lar panels used in this country and is automatFrom
Page
1
obstacles that
have
made
the dream of the uniing its own industry.)
Nxxx,2012-08-19,A,017,Bs-4C,E2
day. The
analogy isrobot
not only
to the ininversal
assembly
elusive.
“I had an early
Yet in the state-of-the-art plant, where the
dustrialization
of
agriculture
but
also
to
o to
naïveté about universal robots that could just
assembly line runs 24 hours a day, seven days
the electrification of manufacturing in
g in
do
anything,”
he
said.
“You
have
to
have
people
a week, there are robots everywhere and few
the past century, Mr.
argues.
.
THEMcAfee
NEW YORK
TIMES NATIONAL SUNDAY, AUGUST 19, 2012
N
17
around
anyway.
And
arere-pretty good at human workers. All of the heavy lifting and al“At what
point does
thepeople
chain saw
replace Paul
Bunyan?”
Mike DenDenfiguring
out,
how doasked
I wiggle
the radiator in or most all of the precise work is done by robots
nison, an executive at Flextronics, a
s, a
slip
the hose on? And these things are still hard that string together solar cells and seal them
manufacturer of consumer electronics
nics
CMYK
Skilled
Work
Without
the
Workers
AtWithout
More
Factories,
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under glass. The human workers do things like
trimming excess material, threading wires and
screwing a handful of fasteners into a simple
frame for each panel.
Such advances in manufacturing are also
beginning to transform other sectors that employ millions of workers around the world.
One is distribution, where robots that zoom at
the speed of the world’s fastest sprinters can
store, retrieve and pack goods for shipment
far more efficiently than people. Robots could
soon replace workers at companies like C & S
Wholesale Grocers, the nation’s largest grocery
distributor, which has already deployed robot
technology.
Rapid improvement in vision and touch
technologies is putting a wide array of manual
jobs within the abilities of robots. For example,
Boeing’s wide-body commercial jets are now
riveted automatically by giant machines that
move rapidly and precisely over the skin of the
planes. Even with these machines, the company
said it struggles to find enough workers to make
its new 787 aircraft. Rather, the machines offer
significant increases in precision and are safer
for workers.
And at Earthbound Farms in California,
four newly installed robot arms with customized suction cups swiftly place clamshell containers of organic lettuce into shipping boxes.
The robots move far faster than the people they
replaced. Each robot replaces two to five workers at Earthbound, according to John Dulchinos,
an engineer who is the chief executive at Adept
Technology, a robot maker based in Pleasanton,
Calif., that developed Earthbound’s system.
Robot manufacturers in the United States
say that in many applications, robots are already more cost-effective than humans.
At an automation trade show last year in
Chicago, Ron Potter, the director of robotics
technology at an Atlanta consulting firm called
Factory Automation Systems, offered attendees
a spreadsheet to calculate how quickly robots
would pay for themselves.
In one example, a robotic manufacturing
system initially cost $250,000 and replaced two
machine operators, each earning $50,000 a year.
Over the 15-year life of the system, the machines
yielded $3.5 million in labor and productivity
savings.
The Obama administration says this tech-
nological shift presents a historic opportunity
for the nation to stay competitive. “The only
way we are going to maintain manufacturing in
the U.S. is if we have higher productivity,” said
Tom Kalil, deputy director of the White House
Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Government officials and industry executives argue that even if factories are automated,
they still are a valuable source of jobs. If the
United States does not compete for advanced
manufacturing in industries like consumer electronics, it could lose product engineering and
design as well. Moreover, robotics executives
argue that even though blue-collar jobs will be
lost, more efficient manufacturing will create
skilled jobs in designing, operating and servicing the assembly lines, as well as significant
numbers of other kinds of jobs in the communities where factories are.
And robot makers point out that their industry itself creates jobs. A report commissioned
by the International Federation of Robotics last
year found that 150,000 people are already employed by robotics manufacturers worldwide in
engineering and assembly jobs.
But American and European dominance
in the next generation of manufacturing is far
from certain.
“What I see is that the Chinese are going to
apply robots too,” said Frans van Houten, Philips’s chief executive. “The window of opportunity to bring manufacturing back is before that
happens.”
A Faster Assembly Line
Royal Philips Electronics began making the
first electric shavers in 1939 and set up the factory here in Drachten in 1950. But Mr. Visser,
the engineer who manages the assembly, takes
pride in the sophistication of the latest shavers.
They sell for as much as $350 and, he says, are
more complex to make than smartphones.
The assembly line here is made up of dozens of glass cages housing robots made by Adept
Technology that snake around the factory floor
for more than 100 yards. Video cameras atop the
cages guide the robot arms almost unerringly to
pick up the parts they assemble. The arms bend
wires with millimetric accuracy, set toothpickthin spindles in tiny holes, grab miniature plastic
gears and set them in housings, and snap pieces
of plastic into place.
on which an army of
urned out half a million
ssembly line is a stark
antly lighted. Its fast, bright Tesla red, each
rm with multiple joints.
are imposing, 8 to 10 feet
em a slightly menacing
uality.
ms seem eerily human
ch over to a stand and
hand” to perform a differthe many robots in auto
ally perform only one
new Tesla factory a roup to four: welding, rivand installing a compo-
eight robots perform a
ach vehicle as it stops at
ong the line for just five
ately as many as 83 cars
ly 20,000 are planned for
— will be produced at the
he company adds a sport
next year, it will be built
sembly line, once the rorammed.
ry is tiny but represents
et on flexible robots, one
a model for the industry.
already thinking bigger.
Beijing Motors recently
ammoth factory outside
n produce a million vehing more robots and fewer
he big factories of their
d with the same flexibilaid Paul Chau, an Ameripitalist at WI Harper who
t in June.
ADEPT TECHNOLOGY
arehouse
and futuristic systems
by side in a distribution
of New York City show
s transforming the way
distributed, threatening
is warehouse in Newhe nation’s largest gro-
YM YIK/EUROPEAN PRESSPHOTO AGENCY
Robot arms like those at a Philips Electronics factory in the Netherlands, top, can perform the same tasks as hundreds of low-skill
workers in factories like the Foxconn plant in Shenzhen, China.
The next generation of robots for manufacturing will be more flexible and easier to train.
Witness the factory of Tesla Motors, which
recently began manufacturing the Tesla S, a
luxury sedan, in Fremont, Calif., on the edge of
Silicon Valley.
More than half of the building is shuttered,
called “the dark side.” It still houses a dingy, unused Toyota Corolla assembly line on which an
army of workers once turned out half a million
cars annually.
The Tesla assembly line is a stark contrast,
brilliantly lighted. Its fast-moving robots, bright
trial neighborhood in Pa
robot armed with electro
a small scoop and suctio
edly picks up boxes an
onto a conveyor belt.
It is doing what low-w
every day around the wo
Older robots cannot do
cause computer vision
costly and limited to
trolled environments wh
was just right. But than
pensive stereo camera
that lets the system see s
same ease as humans,
quickly discern the irr
sions of randomly placed
The robot uses a t
neered in Microsoft’s
sensing system for its Xb
system.
Such robots will put au
in range of companies li
press and United Parce
now employ tens of thou
ers doing such tasks.
The start-up behind th
trial Perception Inc., is t
of Willow Garage, an am
research firm based in
Calif. The first customer
company that now emp
of workers to load and un
The workers can move
six seconds on average
can weigh more than 130
workers tire easily and s
their backs.
Industrial Perception w
tract if its machine can
one box every four seco
neers are confident tha
soon do much better tha
up and setting down on
ond.
“We’re on the cusp
changing manufacturing
tion,” said Gary Brads
vision scientist who is a
dustrial Perception. “I t
singular an event, but it
have as big an impact as
Tesla red, each has a single arm with multiple
joints. Most of them are imposing, 8 to 10 feet
tall, giving them a slightly menacing “Terminator” quality.
But the arms seem eerily human when they
reach over to a stand and change their “hand”
to perform a different task. While the many robots in auto factories typically perform only one
function, in the new Tesla factory a robot might
do up to four: welding, riveting, bonding and installing a component.
As many as eight robots perform a ballet
around each vehicle as it stops at each station
along the line for just five minutes. Ultimately
as many as 83 cars a day — roughly 20,000 are
planned for the first year — will be produced
at the factory. When the company adds a sport
utility vehicle next year, it will be built on the
same assembly line, once the robots are reprogrammed.
Tesla’s factory is tiny but represents a significant bet on flexible robots, one that could be
a model for the industry. And others are already
thinking bigger.
Hyundai and Beijing Motors recently completed a mammoth factory outside Beijing that
can produce a million vehicles a year using more
robots and fewer people than the big factories of
their competitors and with the same flexibility
as Tesla’s, said Paul Chau, an American venture
capitalist at WI Harper who toured the plant in
June.
The New Warehouse
Traditional and futuristic systems working
side by side in a distribution center north of
New York City show how robotics is transforming the way products are distributed, threatening jobs. From this warehouse in Newburgh,
C & S, the nation’s largest grocery wholesaler,
supplies a major supermarket chain.
The old system sprawls across almost half
a million square feet. The shelves are loaded
and unloaded around the clock by hundreds
of people driving pallet jacks and forklifts. At
peak times in the evening, the warehouse is a
cacophony of beeping and darting electric vehicles as workers with headsets are directed
to cases of food by a computer that speaks to
them in four languages.
The new system is much smaller, squeezed
into only 30,000 square feet at the far end of the
warehouse and controlled by just a handful of
technicians. They watch over a four-story cage
with different levels holding 168 “rover” robots
the size of go-carts. Each can move at 25 miles
an hour, nearly as fast as an Olympic sprinter.
Each rover is connected wirelessly to a
central computer and on command will race
along an aisle until it reaches its destination —
a case of food to retrieve or the spot to drop
one off for storage. The robot gathers a box by
extending two-foot-long metal fingers from its
side and sliding them underneath. It lifts the
box and pulls it to its belly. Then it accelerates
to the front of the steel cage, where it turns into
a wide lane where it must contend with traffic
— eight robots are active on each level of the
structure, which is 20 aisles wide and 21 levels
high.
From the aisle, the robots wait their turn to
pull into a special open lane where they deposit
each load into an elevator that sends a stream
of food cases down to a conveyor belt that leads
to a large robot arm.
About 10 feet tall, the arm has the grace
and dexterity of a skilled supermarket bagger,
twisting and turning each case so the final stack
forms an eight-foot cube. The software is sophisticated enough to determine which robot should
pick up which case first, so when the order arrives at the supermarket, workers can take the
cases out in the precise order in which they are
to go on the shelves.
When the arm is finished, the cube of goods
is conveyed to a machine that wraps it in clear
plastic to hold it in place. Then a forklift operator summoned by the computer moves the cube
to a truck for shipment.
Built by Symbotic, a start-up company
based in the Boston area, this robotic warehouse is inspired by computer designers who
created software algorithms to efficiently organize data to be stored on a computer’s hard
drive.
Jim Baum, Symbotic’s chief executive,
compares the new system to a huge parallel
computer. The design is efficient because there
is no single choke point; the cases of food moving through the robotic warehouse are like the
digital bits being processed by the computer.
Humans’ Changing Role
In the decade since he began working as a
warehouseman in Tolleson, Ariz., a suburb of
Phoenix, Josh Graves has seen how automation systems can make work easier but also
create new stress and insecurity. The giant facility where he works distributes dry goods for
Kroger supermarkets.
Mr. Graves, 29, went to work in the warehouse, where his father worked for three decades, right out of high school. The demanding
job required lifting heavy boxes and the hours
were long. “They would bring in 15 guys, and
only one would last,” he said.
Today Mr. Graves drives a small forklift-
like machine that stores and retrieves cases of
all sizes. Because such workers are doing less
physical labor, there are fewer injuries, said
Rome Aloise, a Teamsters vice president in
Northern California. Because a computer sets
the pace, the stress is now more psychological.
Mr. Graves wears headsets and is instructed by a computerized voice on where to go in the
warehouse to gather or store products. A centralized computer the workers call The Brain
dictates their speed. Managers know exactly
what the workers do, to the precise minute.
Several years ago, Mr. Graves’s warehouse
installed a German system that automatically
stores and retrieves cases of food. That led to
the elimination of 106 jobs, roughly 20 percent
of the work force. The new system was initially
maintained by union workers with high seniority. Then that job went to the German company,
which hired nonunion workers.
Now Kroger plans to build a highly automated warehouse in Tolleson. Sixty union workers
went before the City Council last year to oppose
the plan, on which the city has not yet ruled.
“We don’t have a problem with the machines coming,” Mr. Graves told city officials.
“But tell Kroger we don’t want to lose these jobs
in our city.”
Some jobs are still beyond the reach of automation: construction jobs that require workers
to move in unpredictable settings and perform
different tasks that are not repetitive; assembly
work that requires tactile feedback like placing fiberglass panels inside airplanes, boats or
cars; and assembly jobs where only a limited
quantity of products are made or where there
are many versions of each product, requiring
expensive reprogramming of robots.
But that list is growing shorter.
Upgrading Distribution
Inside a spartan garage in an industrial
neighborhood in Palo Alto, Calif., a robot armed
with electronic “eyes” and a small scoop and
suction cups repeatedly picks up boxes and
drops them onto a conveyor belt.
It is doing what low-wage workers do every day around the world.
Older robots cannot do such work because
computer vision systems were costly and
limited to carefully controlled environments
where the lighting was just right. But thanks
to an inexpensive stereo camera and software
that lets the system see shapes with the same
ease as humans, this robot can quickly discern
the irregular dimensions of randomly placed
objects.
The robot uses a technology pioneered in
Microsoft’s Kinect motion sensing system for
its Xbox video game system.
Such robots will put automation within
range of companies like Federal Express and
United Parcel Service that now employ tens of
thousands of workers doing such tasks.
The start-up behind the robot, Industrial
Perception Inc., is the first spinoff of Willow
Garage, an ambitious robotics research firm
based in Menlo Park, Calif. The first customer is
likely to be a company that now employs thousands of workers to load and unload its trucks.
The workers can move one box every six seconds on average. But each box can weigh more
than 130 pounds, so the workers tire easily and
sometimes hurt their backs.
Industrial Perception will win its contract
if its machine can reliably move one box every
four seconds. The engineers are confident that
the robot will soon do much better than that,
picking up and setting down one box per second.
“We’re on the cusp of completely changing manufacturing and distribution,” said Gary
Bradski, a machine-vision scientist who is a
founder of Industrial Perception. “I think it’s
not as singular an event, but it will ultimately
n
have as big an impact as the Internet.”