Mongo e automatização - tanta treta que se ouve

O meu parceiro das conversas oxigenadoras mandou-me este artigo, "Can There Be Too Much Automation?":

"Much of what you hear about automation focuses on the increased productivity that automation can bring to production lines. You hear about this a lot because it’s a true, measurable reality.
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But is it possible that too much reliance on automation can hinder the overall productivity of a factory? [Moi ici: Um velho tema deste blogue, Mongo e automatização não jogam bem!!! Ver Lista de artigos abaixo]
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At Mitsubishi Electric´s Kani manufacturing facility, which is part of the company’s Nagoya Works in Japan, the company found that, by bringing humans into work cells that were once 100 percent automated, the footprint occupied by the cell itself could be reduced by 84 percent.
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In addition, Mitsubishi Electric notes that the introduction of human workers to previously automated assembly lines is helping the Kani factory react faster to changes in product demand.[Moi ici: Tão Mongo!!!]
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The Kani factory produces motor starters and contactors for Mitsubishi Electric. The vast amount of production variations and possible configurations of these products—14,000—diluted the volumes of each particular product. This amount of variability, coupled with customer demands for even greater choice, highlighted the automation problem for Mitsubishi Electric. [Moi ici: Tão Mongo!!!]
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According to the company, manual production at the Kani factory had given way to totally automated assembly lines, which were ideal for mass production with few product variations where high yields could be realized at high speed. But this required many individual components to be held in stock and ready for the manufacturing process; otherwise, the lines would not be able to run for any appreciable length of time.
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In effect, it became difficult and uneconomical for the factory to produce its products in small batches—which just happens to be the very direction in which industry as whole is headed.
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The company realized that, by restoring some human elements, it could reduce some of the manufacturing problems it was encountering.
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Despite that fact that the new cells, featuring a combination of human workers and automation, cannot produce at the same volume and speed as the fully automated lines, the reduced size of the new cells means the company can deploy up to 6.3 cells in the same space once occupied by one cell. Mitsubishi Electric says this means that total productivity density for the facility is much higher due to three key factors: a wider variety of products can be manufactured in smaller batches; one stoppage does not halt the whole of production; and the total number of production lines has increased."

Como escrevo no postal de Fevereiro de 2018 na lista abaixo:

"Muitas vezes penso que as pessoas quando planeiam o futuro não fazem como Teseu no labirinto, não usam uma corda para unir o hoje com o futuro desejado. Por isso, usam lugares comuns. Por isso, não põem os pés no chão e testam a validade dos pressupostos que estão a assumir." 

1. Estranhistão, autenticidade, imperfeição e automatização (Agosto de 2013) 
2. Um mesmo processo automatizado é demasiado rígido para Mongo (Abril 2014)
3. Mongo e a automatização... pois! (Fevereiro 2016)
4. Beyond Lean (Agosto 2017)
5. Seru (parte V) (Setembro 2017)
6. Da normalização para a excepção (parte II) (Fevereiro de 2018)
7. Coisa de loucos (Maio de 2018)
8. O que protegerá Portugal dos robôs? (Outubro de 2018)
9. Nem de propósito! (Dezembro de 2018)

Cuidado com a automatização

A propósito de "When Robots Miss the Minutiae":

"But the case for automation isn’t universally clear. For although they may lack certain human foibles, software programs also lack certain human attributes that can be enormously useful in business.
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In time, of course, it’s possible that computers will develop the capacities of empathy, historical understanding, and social awareness that humans have. But it’s clear they are not there yet. And in the meantime, it poses a dilemma. The business of online advertising – as so many others do today – relies increasingly on automation. Insert more people into the process, and the price goes up while the pace of execution declines dramatically. That’s bad for margins. But there are clearly times when leaving the computers to their own devices can lead to results that drive clients to rethink their decisions to do business on a platform in the first place. And that’s even worse for margins."

Recordar "a Mercedes e a Toyota"

Mongo e a customização dos carros (parte II)

Parte I.

Este surto de automatização "Businesses Ordered More Robots Last Year Than Ever Before" tem duas leituras:

• Por um lado, o atraso americano a entrar nesta onda;
• Por outro, um sintoma da continuação da paixão americana pelo preço, (Ver "Para recordar..."), quando alemães e japoneses já estão noutra fase.

"North American businesses ordered 35,000 robots in 2016, a 10% increase from 2015, according to a report on Tuesday by trade organization Robotic Industries Association."

Humanos e máquinas

"In his 2013 book, “Average Is Over,” Mr. Cowen briefly mentioned how two average human chess players, working with three regular computers, were able to beat both human chess champions and chess-playing supercomputers.
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It was a revelation for Mr. Work. You could “use the tactical ingenuity of the computer to improve the strategic ingenuity of the human,” he said."

Trecho retirado de "The Pentagon’s ‘Terminator Conundrum’: Robots That Could Kill on Their Own"

Conjugar com "Man and machine: The new collaborative workplace of the future":

"At Ford's factory in Cologne, Germany, a new kind of robot is sitting by the assembly line helping manufacture the legendary automaker's cars. But these collaborative robots, or co-bots, aren't replacing their human counterparts at this Ford Fiesta plant. Instead, they're working side by side with 4,000 Ford factory workers, and not for them.
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"It's not just the use of co-bots — it's the reduction of industrial robots," said Frank Tobe, a robotics expert and publisher of "The Robot Report." "The traditional caged robot at auto factories is becoming obsolete, because every car is different from every other car."
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Manufacturing precisely configured vehicles where customers choose details like the trim of the dash or the caps of tire valves is not a task for large industrial robots, which have trouble adapting to an age of mass customization in part because they constantly have to be reprogrammed."

Recordar:

• Para recordar ...
• "humans and machines will work together"

Para recordar...

"In principle, the production of virtually any component or assembly operation could be robotized and moved to high-wage countries—but only so long as demand is great enough, and design specifications stable enough, to justify huge scale and hundreds of millions, if not billions, in upfront investments."

Recordar a Toyota e a Mercedes.
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Recordar a Deutsche Post.
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Trecho retirado de "The Meaning of Open Trade and Open Borders"

Mongo e a automatização... pois!

Fez ontem um mês que estava numa empresa de calçado a olhar, através de um vidro num primeiro andar, para o reboliço habitual nas linhas de produção no chão de fábrica. Na altura comentei com o gerente que tinha assistido recentemente a uma apresentação de projectos de robótica para o sector e que tinha ficado com uma incomodidade, pouco daquilo me parecia prático para empresas com pequenas séries e grande variedade de produção. Ele concordou e falou-me de exemplos que conhecia, em empresas bem maiores, que estavam a ganhar pó porque não podiam ser usados, não faziam sentido para as produções do calçado português de hoje.
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Se visitam este blogue com regularidade conhecem a minha metáfora: Mongo.
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Mongo é o mundo da diversidade, da personalização, da experiência, da decomoditização. Por isso "Um mesmo processo automatizado é demasiado rígido para Mongo" ou ainda mais radical "É disto que eu gosto... ninja-like... just like an al-qaeda cell".
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Assim, foi com um enorme sorriso que li "Mercedes-Benz swaps robots for people on its assembly lines":

"Bucking modern manufacturing trends, Mercedes-Benz has been forced to trade in some of its assembly line robots for more capable humans.
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The robots cannot handle the pace of change and the complexity of the key customisation options available for the company’s S-Class saloon at the 101-year-old Sindelfingen plant, which produces 400, 000 vehicles a year from 1,500 tons of steel a day.
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The dizzying number of options for the cars – from heated or cooled cup holders, various wheels, carbon-fibre trims and decals, and even four types of caps for tire valves – demand adaptability and flexibility, two traits where humans currently outperform robots.
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Markus Schaefer, Mercedes-Benz’ head of production told Bloomberg: “Robots can’t deal with the degree of individualisation and the many variants that we have today. We’re saving money and safeguarding our future by employing more people.”
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Skilled humans can change a production line in a weekend, where robots take weeks to reprogram and realign.
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“We’re moving away from trying to maximise automation with people taking a bigger part in industrial processes again. We need to be flexible. The variety is too much to take on for the machines. They can’t work with all the different options and keep pace with changes.”"

Recordar:

• "o que pode desaparecer no futuro não é o trabalho" (Maio de 2014)
• O truque é a interacção, a co-criação. Os robots não têm hipótese! (Abril de 2015)
• “The minute the future becomes unpredictable, efficiency can become your enemy.” (Maio de 2015) 
• O mantra do século XXI é diferente (Julho de 2015)
• "humans and machines will work together" (Janeiro de 2016)